UP to 50 new jobs are being created in Glasgow by Startline Motor Finance this year as the business transfers its customer services function in-house.
The move will also see a doubling of office space taken at the company’s Skypark One headquarters.
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Paul Burgess, Startline chief executive, said: “Since our inception, we have outsourced our customer services function.
“However, the timing is right for Startline to assume responsibility for our portfolio internally as the business matures.
“Customer services includes all of the activity that might be needed by customers during the life of their finance agreement, from changing Direct Debit details to asset management. All our stakeholders are keen to make a success of this transition.”
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He said: "The move will give us greater control over the customer journey and help us to continue to drive our service standards.
“It is an exciting change and also a vote of confidence in the quality of staff that we believe we will be able to recruit in and around Glasgow, with the hiring process already under way.”
Startline is undergoing a period of rapid expansion, and during a "transformative" 2018, it doubled the number of staff employed to 80, and ended the year with business volumes up by more than 20 per cent.
Mr Burgess said: “Our lending takes place mainly through franchised dealer groups, car supermarkets and online introducers, and we are now working with larger numbers of all of these.
“We also introduced a personal contract purchase offering to sit alongside our existing hire purchase products and this is proving to be very popular. In 2019, we foresee further, similar growth and the new recruitment supports this.”
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Since it was set up in the city five years ago, Startline says it has become a force in the “near prime” motor finance sector, specialising in products that are designed to be used when a mainstream prime lender declines an applicant.
Mr Burgess added: “It makes no sense and is unfair that buyers who fall slightly below prime lender requirements very often end up using what we describe in the industry as a ‘sub-prime’ offer. There should be other options.
“We believe that, with a shifting social and economic landscape signifying changes in home ownership and employment patterns, that a move towards products like ours makes absolute sense.
“What we do at Startline is treat the applicant as an individual. Of course, we have some hard lending rules but in areas where other lenders take a black-and-white approach, we will take a look at the applicant in more detail.”
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