Wesbank wrote up R2,2 billion in vehicle financing business in March, helping the FirstRand Bank division to achieve its highest level for a single month, R3,28 billion, the company says.
Vehicle and asset finance company Wesbank wrote up a total of R3,28 billion in new business for the month of March. Its Motor Division contributed R2,2 billion of the total transactions logged, with the WesBank Business Division adding R912 million and a further R52 million through Internet transactions.
The R3-billion target was set when the previous milestone of R2-billion per month was celebrated in October 2002.
This follows after aggregate new vehicle sales in March exceeded industry expectations in all sectors and was 28,4 per cent higher than in the corresponding period last year. The market not only recorded significant gains compared with the corresponding month last year, but aggregate sales were also higher than in February, when 32 330 units were sold. Total new vehicle sales last month (38 891 units) was up by 8 614 vehicles compared with the 30 277 new vehicles sold in March last year.
Wesbank chief executive Ronnie recently predicted that passenger market sales for 2004 would increase by 12 per cent, reaching 275 000 units by year end.
He said that Wesbank’s achievement was due to a strong retail sales month that “fell just right in terms of the number of trading days. The demand was fuelled by the low interest rate environment and manufacturers that offered attractive deals in the form of specialised financial packages”.
Meanwhile, Watson revealed that Wesbank’s arrears levels were at a 10-year low. There was, however, a large amount of pent up demand for vehicles and Watson said he expected the strong sales growth to continue into the next quarter.
