Banque PSA Finance finances and manages around 105,000 vehicles in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, mainly on behalf of large corporate fleet customers. It is one of Sofico’s oldest customers and was originally using the previous generation Leasebase system across the region to manage its extensive and complex fleet operations. 

However, the company took the decision to migrate to the new generation Miles solution because of the need to meet the continually changing financial and service requirements of its fleet and dealer customers, and because Miles offered the scope and capability to do this. 

Banque PSA Finance also needed to meet new reporting requirements, including financial accounting, following its joint venture with Spanish financial institution, Santander. The venture, with Santander’s Consumer Finance division announced in July 2014, has established a 50:50 partnership between the two groups in 11 countries, aimed at boosting the competitiveness of Peugeot, Citroën and DS across Europe. 

Another factor in the decision to implement Miles was its flexibility in being able to incorporate PSA Finance’s unique product offerings "temps plus" and "distance libre". These two products provide fleet customers with upfront flexibility in the length of the lease period or in the total contract mileage, with the ability to share in any surplus or deficit and are seen as integral to the group’s customer offering. 

The Miles application has initially been integrated into Banque PSA Finance’s complex IT landscape in France, with a roll-out into the Benelux – Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands – expected to start shortly. 

One of the key factors in the decision to begin in France was Sofico’s capability to manage and execute the project in French and the company’s knowledge of the French automotive and fleet markets. 

Sofico staff from the recently formed Sofico Services France division, based in Avignon, Southern France, were heavily involved in the roll-out of the project to ensure that there was joint support with Sofico’s Zwijnaarde head office team. 

Sofico, whose systems now manage in excess of 1m vehicles worldwide, formed its new division in France after the acquisition of French IT solutions company, Car Systems, in July last year. This is the first implementation the new division has carried out in that country and with the successful establishment of the French division, more are now expected. 

Sofico’s implementation team worked closely with staff in Banque PSA Finance’s internal IT department to configure and customise Miles in such a way that will allow them to be more self-supporting and independent for future enhancements, and in anticipation of the forthcoming roll-out into the Benelux. 

Crucially, Sofico’s Miles solution, which manages more than 1million vehicles around the world, comes with a pre-configured Reference Implementation set-up, based on common processes and best practices within the leasing and finance industry. This speeds up the implementation process considerably and can cut the time required for implementation down to a matter of weeks or months.

Miles is also highly configurable which allows it to be adjusted to meet the customer’s exact requirements and to provide optimal support for customers’ individual processes.

However, in this case, the Reference Implementation had to be adapted and customised to meet the exact requirements of the French market. Sofico’s technical support staff spent more than 150 man-days adapting the set-up to cover the country-specific information and processes necessary for France.

Gémar Hompes, managing director at Sofico, said: “Naturally, we are delighted to welcome Banque PSA Finance to those of our European fleet customers who have successfully migrated to Miles. 

“The implementation presented a number of challenges and represented a great team effort from our new French division, which we formed specifically for this purpose following the acquisition of Car Systems last year. We now fully expect to carry out more implementations with customers in the region as a result.”