In this issue

Welcome to Leasing Life’s quarterly e-magazine for asset finance and leasing professionals in the UK and Continental Europe.

Since I last addressed you, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has led to war, a humanitarian crisis, the destruction of infrastructure and a breakdown of how business operates within Ukraine.

In March, I spoke to Haim Kapelnikov, the chief executive of Avis Ukraine, about how his car leasing business and its workers are coping given the circumstances they find themselves in. See, Steering a car leasing business through a Ukraine war zone.

Closer to home, we attended the launch of HPD Lendscape’s asset finance back-office platform, which its MD, Steve Taplin, said has benefited from learning the lessons from the Covid pandemic. See, HPD Lendscape asset finance offering gained from Covid’s hard lessons.

We also cover the story of how an Australian office equipment lessor exploited weaknesses in some of the country’s top asset finance providers’ lending schemes, allegedly making off with half-a-billion Aussie dollars in the process. The man at the centre of the scandal has decamped to Greece while a civil law claim seeking to recoup the missing funds plays out in the Australia’s Federal Court. See Australian photocopier salesman accused of $500m leasing scam.

This tale from Down Under would be hard to believe had the UK not proven it could also produce scams of historic proportions recently. The mystery surrounding the fresh-air invoicing of broadcasting equipment at Arena Television, its missing millions and its absconded directors continues to cast a shadow over fraud prevention in the UK. Our cover feature looks at the role that digital technology is playing by making things harder for would-be fraudsters. See AI, Cloud, 5G and blockchain as a tool for anti-fraud.