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The SME lender has bolstered its profit margin by 17.4 per cent, driven by a $2 billion rise in turnover.
According to its full-year 2018 (FY18) financial results, Scottish Pacific’s debtor finance turnover increased by 13.2 per cent, from $15.4 billion in FY17 to $17.4 billion in FY18.
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The business lender’s net profit after tax (NPAT) also jumped by 17.4 per cent, from $25.3 million in FY17 to $29.7 million in FY18.
Speaking to The Adviser, CEO of Scottish Pacific Peter Langham attributed the lender’s FY18 performance to growth in clients’ businesses and the “need for increased working capital by business owners”.
Mr Langham added: “We’ve seen growth in client numbers and demand, and we’ve seen growth [from] our existing customers growing their businesses, [so] I think our clients are growing and we grow with them.”
The CEO also highlighted the contribution of Scottish Pacific’s broker network and noted that the lender’s plan to expand its product offering, which would include the uptake of new asset finance products in 2H19, would enable brokers to provide further value to their clients.
“[Brokers] still represent 40 per cent of our new business. They’re a valuable cog for our success,” the CEO continued.
“We’re adding more products to our solution suite, which we’ll be able to, in time, roll out to those brokers so they’ve got more solutions for their clients as well.”
Mr Langham added that Scottish Pacific is in the process of building a broker portal aimed at simplifying the finance application process.
“The idea of introducing a broker portal hopefully makes it easier for those brokers to interact with us, track inquiries and keep up to date with the issues going on at the time,” the CEO said.
Further, when asked if he was concerned that recent political and market uncertainty would dampen business confidence, Mr Langham said: “When you look at small business owners, they might be momentarily concerned about elections or things going on in the external markets, but I can assure you that the very next day they go out there and try and win more customers and more business.
“What they might do is delay buying a new ute or a truck until stability comes back again, but I think it’s more of an issue for bigger businesses where they’re looking to plan some capital expenditure, and if they’ve got some uncertainty there, they don’t know what to do.
“When it comes to our customers, a majority of which are business owners, who are the same as the brokers’ customers, they’re a pretty resilient lot and they’d be chasing new sales, which positively impacts them and us.”
