Flexible and convenient leasing through Softlogic Finance
If you are a business person, salaried employee or a regular income earner, when you have an urgent fund requirement and your bank facilities have been fully utilized, a lease can help you to resolve your problems. Urgent fund requirement means that you need financial assistance expeditiously. In such a scenario, Softlogic Finance provides relief in the form of Softlogic Finance Flexi Leasing. We spoke to Mr. Nalin Wijekoon- Director/ Chief Executive Officer of Softlogic Finance PLC about the product as well as the company. The following is an excerpt of the interview? FIRST OF ALL, CAN YOU TELL ME WHY YOU DECIDED TO INTRODUCE THE PRODUCT FLEXI LEASING?
Since our inception, our core business was leasing and hire purchases, catering to the small and medium entrepreneurs and professionals, employees and other regular income earners. However, in the past 5 to 6 years, as commercial banks began to aggressively offer leasing products, customers tended to take their leasing facilities from the banks. And finance companies began to diversify and offer new products.
We too moved to new short term products, but we feel that in order for us to grow, we need long term products, which is why we are once again focusing on leasing hire purchases.
TO WHOM DOES THE FLEXI LEASING PRODUCT CATER?
Mainly for the business people, but even professionals, employees and other regular income earners can get the lease.
WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT THE PRODUCT? AND WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF IT?
We can facilitate the lease in one or two business days and only require acceptable personal guarantees. You can also choose your ideal monthly installment and there are flexible tenure options and special repayment packages to suit your needs. You can pay only the monthly interest which is affordable to you as your monthly installment.
WHY SHOULD A CUSTOMER CONSIDER THIS LEASE?
Especially for business people, when their bank limits are fully utilized and they want to purchase stocks or to fulfill other working capital requirements, they can lease their registered vehicle with us.
We provide 50% of the market value of your registered vehicle within 2 days. Our interest rates are attractive and you have to pay only the monthly interest until you accumulate funds and you can settle the full capital after 1 to 3 years’ period.
After the agreed period you can also sell your vehicle, settle the capital and buy a new vehicle, in which case, we will provide leasing for it as well. If you want to buy an unregistered or a brand new vehicle we will provide you 50% from the value of the vehicle to pay interest only on a monthly basis.
IF YOU CAN ALSO SPEAK ABOUT YOUR OTHER PRODUCTS?
We are entering into the operating lease segment as well; where the vehicle is owned by the finance company and the customer only pay a monthly rental. At present there are only few finance companies who offer this service, but with the Finance Ministry circular stating that all government institutes must obtain operating leases for new vehicles, we are entering into this segment.
We have an agreement with Future Automobiles- another subsidiary of Softlogic Holdings. We will purchase brand new Ford vehicles from them, and our customers can get operating leases. We will service the vehicle and repair them at the state-of-theart Service centre at Future Automobiles and
We provide 50% of the market value of your registered vehicle within 2 days. Our interest rates are attractive and you have to pay only the monthly interest until you accumulate funds and you can settle the full capital after 1 to 3 years’ period. If you want to buy an unregistered or a brand new vehicle we will provide you 50% from the value of the vehicle to pay interest only on a monthly basis.
insure the vehicle as well.
We also have the ‘Atha Hitha’ loan scheme for SMES in order to finance permanent and incremental working capital requirements and short term capital expenditure of businessmen. Loans up to LKR 15, 000, 000.00 will be processed within 2 working days under a fixed rate upon fulfilling credit requirements along with two acceptable personal guarantees.
Further we provide educational loans up to 5 million with acceptable personal guarantee. In this scheme, the parents will have the opportunity to seek financial support specifically for,admission purpose for their children into a private or an international school or a university and we pay the entire course fee to the particular institute and you can settle the loan from monthly installments.
Savings product and fixed deposit product are also a part of the interesting mix of products we have to offer to our clients.
WHAT ARE THE FUTURE PLANS FOR THE PRODUCTS?
We will tie up with a bank so that our customers can access their saving accounts through an island wide ATM network. We are also upgrading our IT system implementing Oracle Flex cube system to provide efficient service to our clients.
HOW FAST CAN YOU PROVIDE YOUR LEASING FACILITIES?
If a customer walks into a branch and provide the necessary documents, we can provide the lease facility within 2 working days. Otherwise you can call us on our hot line and we can send one of our representatives to your doorstep to coordinate with you. So within 2 working days we can easily facilitate the lease.