Monthly Confidence Index for Equipment Finance Industry, COVID-19 Survey Results
The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation (the Foundation) released the December 2020 Monthly Confidence Index for the Equipment Finance Industry (MCI-EFI). The index reports a qualitative assessment of both the prevailing business conditions and expectations for the future as reported by key executives from the $900 billion equipment finance sector. Overall, confidence in the equipment finance market is 59.7, an increase from the November index of 56.1.
The Foundation also released highlights of the COVID-19 Impact Survey of the Equipment Finance Industry, a monthly survey of industry leaders designed to track the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the equipment finance industry. 47 survey responses were collected from December 1-14 on a range of topics, including payments deferrals, defaults, and staff analysis. 50% of companies expect that the default rate will be greater in 2020 than in 2019, down from 54% in November; 33% expect it to be the same, down from 35% last month; and 17% expect it to be lower compared to 11% last month. Only 2% of lenders reported having more than 10% of their portfolio now under deferral, down from 4% of lenders last month. The largest percentage of respondents (64%) have 0.01-4.99% of dollars outstanding currently under payment deferral in their owned portfolio. Comments from survey respondents follow MCI-EFI survey comments below, and additional survey results and analysis are available at https://www.leasefoundation.org/industry-resources/covid-impact-survey/.