Al-Soor Financing & Leasing increase capital to KD50 million

Mrs. Maha Al Ghunaim, the Vice Chairman of Al-Soor said, "We believe that the consumer finance sector in Kuwait is an important part of the economy and offers significant growth opportunities in the coming years.'

"This capital increase shall provide the company adequate strength to pursue some of the plans that the board of Al-Soor have put in place and to execute some specific opportunities on which it has been working for close to one year," she added

Al Soor is a Kuwaiti shareholding company that was established in July 2005 with an authorized and paid-up capital of KD30 million to provide a wide range of conventional financial services like Consumer finance, Trade finance and loans for home improvement.

Al Soor wishes to capitalize on the emerging and existing opportunities in the consumer finance sector in Kuwait and the larger GCC region, with a concentration on the Auto sector.

Though it is difficult to gauge the exact figure, the current total consumer credit market size in Kuwait estimated at around KD 1.8 billion. About 70-75% of the new passenger cars and about 25-30% of the electronic goods are sold on credit, some large dealers selling almost 50% on credit.

The market offers ample growth opportunities for players with an organized style of financing that provides ease of transaction and flexibility to the customers through innovative finance programs. The population profile of Kuwait holds lot of promises for the future for established and well managed players in the consumer credit market. About 50% of the Kuwaiti population is below 20 years of age.

This high potential market will eventually join the work force, and establish a new household, thereby generating demand for cars, consumer goods and other financing. However, in comparison with the other GCC countries, Kuwait still appears to have lesser number of active financial institutions serving its population in relation to the size of its economy.