Barclays Introduces New Product

Barclays Bank Ghana Limited has introduced a new product to deepen the country's financial market.

The product, known as the Vehicle and Asset Finance, is a type of leasing operation and comes in three different forms, Flexi-Lease, Flexi-Rent and Flexi-Loan, which allows customers to own assets of their choice.

Under the various products, the customer chooses the equipment and the bank pays for the product while customers would be required to make specified payments to the bank over an agreed period.

The payment covers principal plus interest and provides customers the option to own the equipment.

The Head of Vehicle and Asset Finance of the bank, Mr Mathias Dorfe, who briefed the media about the new product explained that under the Flexi-Lease, customers had full access to any asset of their choice with an option to own it at the end of the lease period.

Under the “Flexi-Rent” agreement, he said, the customer from the onset owns the asset but had no option of ownership at the end of the lease term.

He explained that with the Flexi-Loan, the bank took a specific debenture on the asset and allowed the customer to pay capital plus interest and a debenture released at the end of the term.

Mr Dorfe said that the introduction of the product was a response to the low volume of leasing in the country, and that the bank was using its vast resources and expertise to actively lead the development of leasing in Ghana and four other African countries.

The Managing Director of the bank, Mrs Margaret Mwanakatwe, said the products were tailored to meet the motor vehicle and other capital equipment financing needs of the Corporate Banking segment of the market.

She said the bank was testing the Retail Vehicle and Asset Finance product with existing individual and small enterprise customers and would soon hit the market with that offer.