German B2B IT leasing firm Grenke lands in Australia, starts operations in Sydney and Melbourne

German financial group Grenke has started operations in Australia with two local offices, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne.

The company specialises in IT leasing for the B2B market and provides financial services to IT resellers only.

The company says it is independent of vendors or banks and is able to finance hardware, software and other IT-related products starting from $500 plus GST.

Grenke provides resellers with commercial leasing for its customers. According to the leasing specialist, resellers often work with vendor leasing programs, such as Canon Finance, HP Finance or Ricoh Lease Capital. Grenke argues that this poses a risk, as the vendor gains the reseller's database of clients.

Managing director Victor Ferreira told CRN: "If tomorrow, they decide to work, for example, with Dell instead of HP, their client’s database will not be protected."

Resellers working with Grenke have access to its online portal and can start a credit application by entering a customer's ABN, contract term period and the value.

Grenke then generates a contract in less than 20 minutes that the reseller is able to print and have the customer sign. The reseller sends the signed contract to Grenke with a copy of the customer's ID, an invoice is sent to the customer and Grenke then pays for the contract themselves.

The company was founded in 1978 with a focus on leasing office communications equipment. In 2003 Grenke became a publicly listed company with the SDAX, a German stock market index.

Grenke operates 30 countries including Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Dubai and Singapore.