In its latest Monthly Leasing and Finance Index, issued May 22, the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) reports that new equipment leasing volume for April was $8 billion, up 7% from the new business volume in April 2013. Month-over-month, new business volume was up 14% from March. Year to date, cumulative new business volume increased 6% compared to 2013.
ELFA develops the index by analyzing economic activity from 25 companies that represent a cross section of the $827-billion equipment finance sector.
The April index shows that receivables over 30 days decreased to 2.0%, compared with 2.1% the previous month, and were flat with the same period in 2013. Charge-offs were unchanged from the previous month at an all-time low of 0.2%.
Credit approvals totaled 77.4% in April, a slight decrease from 77.8% the previous month. Forty-four percent of participating organizations reported submitting more transactions for approval during April, a decrease from 65% during March.
Finally, total headcount for equipment finance companies was up 2.0% year over year. This result is more in line with industry employment trends than the previous two months’ year-over-year increases, which reflected a rebounding from large decreases the prior year.
Separately, the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation's Monthly Confidence Index (MCI-EFI) for May is 65.4—relatively unchanged from 65.1 in April—the highest index level in two years for the third consecutive month.
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