Press Release

Braunschweig, 23 March 2020. Volkswagen Financial Services have ended the financial year 2019 with their best-ever operating result and with a record number of contracts on their books. The operating profit amounted to EUR 2.96 billion, an increase of 13.3 percent over the previous year. "We can proudly look back on a decade of record results. We see the fact that we have been able to improve our results every year as an incentive for the future," says Lars Henner Santelmann, Chairman of the Management Board of Volkswagen Financial Services AG. He continues: "During last year in particular, we worked hard on our costs while at the same time investing in the future and further increasing our sales." Chief Financial Officer Frank Fiedler adds: "Our growing portfolio of contracts and the first positive effects from our cost and efficiency program Operational Excellence (OPEX) have enabled us to present such a strong result for 2019."

The total number of current contracts at the end of the year was 21.498 million units (+5.9%, previous year: 20.3 million units). The total assets of the business division Volkswagen Financial Services amounted to EUR 223.5 billion (+7.7%, previous year: EUR 207.6 billion).

"We intend to achieve a cost-income ratio of 40 percent for the Volkswagen Financial Services division by 2025," says Fiedler. He adds: "Thanks to increased earnings and our efficiency measures, we have already been able to reduce the cost-income ratio to 48.1 percent in 2019. So we are on the right track." At the end of the year before that (31.12.2018), the cost-income ratio of Volkswagen Financial Services was 49.0 percent.

In addition to their focus on growth and costs, Volkswagen Financial Services also invested heavily in the future of their business model. Santelmann explains: "Besides our investments in digitalization, we also invested heavily in the expansion of our fleet and used car business. We did so by acquiring new companies and opening up new markets. Our plan, after all, is to become the world's largest fleet provider and to increase the number of our used vehicle contracts."

Information for editors:

Volkswagen Financial Services are a business division of the Volkswagen AG group of companies and comprise Volkswagen Financial Services AG along with its associated companies, Volkswagen Bank GmbH, Porsche Financial Services, and the financial services companies in the USA and Canada that belong directly or indirectly to Volkswagen AG – with the exception of the financial services of the Scania brand and Porsche Holding Salzburg. The key business fields embrace dealer and customer financing, leasing, the bank and insurance business, fleet management and mobility offers. Volkswagen Financial Services have a total of 16,571 employees worldwide – including 7,414 alone in Germany. Volkswagen Financial Services report total assets of around EUR 223.5 billion, an operating result of EUR 2.96 billion euros and a portfolio of around 21.5 million current contracts (as at: 31.12.2019).