Paul Burgess, CEO, explained: “Since 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. 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 underway.”

Startline is undergoing a period of rapid expansion. During 2018, it doubled the number of staff employed to 80, moved into offices that were more than twice the size of its previous premises, and ended the year with business volumes up by more than 20%.

Paul continued: “The last 12 months have been transformative for us. 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.”

Since being established in Glasgow five years ago, Startline has become a pioneer in the “near prime” motor finance sector, specialising in products that are designed to be used when a mainstream prime lender declines an applicant.

Paul said: “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.”