Volvo Cars and Santander Consumer (UK) plc (SCUK) announced today that they have agreed to form a joint-venture partnership to launch a new financial services business in the UK, Volvo Car Financial Services UK Ltd (VCFSUK).

The partnership is the latest development in a well established co-operation between the two businesses. For the past 10 years, SCUK has provided funding to Volvo Cars’ UK retailers and customers on a ‘white label’ basis, trading as Volvo Car Financial Services. The new company will be a 50:50 partnership with Volvo Cars and SCUK as equal shareholders.

Subject to receiving the required regulatory approval from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the new joint-venture company will commence operations in early 2021. An experienced team is being recruited, which will ensure that VCFSUK delivers on its shareholders’ expectations and operates at the highest levels of business professionalism, efficiency and customer focus.

The new company will provide wholesale funding to Volvo Cars’ UK retailer network and provide finance for customers purchasing new and used Volvo cars. It will benefit from the expertise and back-office systems support from SCUK, while establishing a dedicated team that will work closely with Volvo Car UK, to ensure even closer alignment to the brand’s aspirations for continued growth in the UK.

The new company’s focus on Volvo Cars will support the brand in its business priorities, delivering competitive new products and enhancing the IT systems accessed by both retailers and customers. Flexibility and the ability to respond quickly to changing market dynamics will benefit both the shareholder organisations and the brands the business will support.

VCFSUK will be led by David Baddeley as Managing Director. Baddeley has extensive experience with Volvo Cars in the UK and Ireland, and was previously Operations Director at Volvo Car UK. The new company will share offices with Volvo Car UK in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

Baddeley said: “This is a great opportunity, leading a new team that brings together expertise from within SCUK and Volvo Cars, as well as other sector specialists, to create a financial services business that we believe will deliver a positive difference for our retail partners and customers.”

Kristian Elvefors, Volvo Car UK’s Manging Director, commented: “Given the years of successful co-operation between our two companies, we can be confident that this new joint venture with SCUK will deliver benefits to both our brands and, most importantly, to our customers. We will be able to support our exceptional UK market growth with new, highly focused financial services products that will be robust, attractive and competitive.”

Vik Hill, Managing Director SCUK, added: “The Volvo white label relationship has been an enormous success for more than a decade now. This new joint venture will only strengthen the partnership between SCUK and VCUK further and ensure we deliver great products, business solutions and services to our customers and our retail partners for many years to come.”v40