Paul Burgess

Paul Burgess, CEO, said that 10 employees were being added to the company’s origination team, based at its Glasgow headquarters, to handle increased levels of business.

“We normally see a bump in demand during January and are expecting this to be a strong month accompanied by a strong Q1, so we want to have the people in place needed to handle demand from dealers and other motor finance introducers,” he said.

“The used car market has remained buoyant during 2021 and we have continued to see growth as a result. We have supported this by gradually increasing our employee numbers and are now up to around 160 people in total.”

Startline expects the general economy next year to be potentially quite volatile, but demand for motor finance to be robust.

Mr Burgess said: “There is a good chance that early next year, we will see a range of factors negatively affecting the economy, including materials and labour shortages, the end of furloughing, and the ongoing upheaval resulting from both Brexit and the pandemic.

“However, we are confident in the resilience of the used car market. While we expect values to finally stabilise, stock will remain in short supply and consumers appear to have an ongoing appetite to keep buying.”

He added that Startline’s new employees would, like all the company’s staff, be given the option of a hybrid working model in 2022.