Stellantis Financial Services: car finance, PCP and leasing

Stellantis Financial Services is the finance arm behind the car brands in the Stellantis group, including Citroen, DS, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Fiat and Jeep. It is the lender or the owner on the agreement when you take car finance through one of those dealers, and it also trades under names such as Citroen Contract Motoring, Free2Move Lease and Just Add Fuel¹.

It offers the four arrangements most people meet at a dealership: personal contract purchase (PCP), personal contract hire (PCH), conditional sale, and a package it calls Flex & Free. The differences matter more than the branding, because they decide who owns the car, what you pay for, and what you can do if your circumstances change.

Stellantis Financial Services provides car finance in the UK, and its agreements cover hire purchase, personal contract purchase and leasing, along with the insurance and warranty products sold under names such as Citroen Contract Motoring, Just Add Fuel and Free2Move Lease¹. Its permissions cover entering into regulated credit agreements as lender and entering into and exercising the owner's rights under regulated consumer hire agreements¹.

Stellantis car finance: PCP, PCH, Conditional Sale and Flex & Free

The four arrangements differ on three things that matter: who owns the car, whether there is a final payment, and what happens if you want out early.

Personal contract purchase (PCP) is the arrangement most new car buyers meet. Your monthly payments cover the drop in the car's value while you are paying it back, not the whole price⁶. At the end there is a final payment, often called a balloon payment, and you may be able to hand the vehicle back rather than make it⁵. Because the balloon payment counts towards the total amount payable, it is included when working out whether you have reached the 50% mark for voluntary termination².

Personal contract hire (PCH) is a lease. The car is never your property and you return it at the end of the hire agreement, which also means you are never allowed to sell it². Early exit is the weak point: it is not generally possible to terminate a PCH agreement early, and if you do you may need to pay the full amount remaining on the lease².

Conditional sale sits closer to hire purchase. You are buying the car over time, ownership passes when the final payment is made, and the same restriction on selling applies while the agreement runs⁶.

Flex & Free is Stellantis Financial Services' own packaged product, sold through its dealer network. Because the terms are set by the provider and change over time, the figures that apply to you are the ones in your own agreement rather than anything published here.

If you are weighing these against borrowing elsewhere, the loans guide sets out how personal loans and car finance compare, and the insurance guide covers the cover you will need alongside any of them.

Who can get Stellantis finance and how the agreements work

Stellantis finance is arranged through the dealer when you buy or lease a car from one of the group's brands, rather than applied for directly from the lender in the way you would apply for a personal loan. The dealer submits the application, and Stellantis Financial Services decides whether to accept it and on what terms.

The legal shape of the agreement decides what you can and cannot do with the car. With hire purchase, conditional sale and lease or hire agreements, you cannot sell the car without the permission of the finance company, and that applies across all three⁶. For PCP and hire purchase, you do not have complete ownership until all payments are finalised, so a private sale is not legally permissible². With a lease or hire agreement, you cannot sell the car at all⁶.

That restriction catches people out when they want to change cars early. The usual route is a dealer part exchange, where the dealer settles the outstanding finance with Stellantis Financial Services and any difference is dealt with between you and the dealer. Selling privately while finance is outstanding leaves the buyer exposed, and the Finance and Leasing Association advises checking a vehicle's history before buying to see whether finance is recorded against it⁷.

Where you arrange finance yourself rather than through the dealer, the position is different: if there is a problem with the car, the finance company will not have any responsibility for helping you solve it⁸.

PCP ends with a balloon payment: your options at the end

A PCP has three possible endings, and the one you take is a choice rather than something that happens to you.

1. Pay the final balloon payment and keep the car.
2. Hand the vehicle back instead of making that payment, which ends the agreement with nothing further to pay provided you have met the conditions⁵.
3. Use any equity between the car's value and the amount owed as a deposit on another car.

The condition attached to handing the car back is the 50% rule. You need to have paid 50% of the total amount payable under the agreement, and if you have not, you will need to make up the difference if you want to hand the car back². In a PCP, the guaranteed future value, which is the balloon payment, is included in the total amount payable when working out whether you have reached that 50% mark². That usually makes the threshold easier to reach on a PCP than people expect.

If you do nothing, the final payment falls due on the date in your agreement. Payments are typically collected under a continuous payment authority, and if you miss the deadline to stop that payment, you will not be able to stop it being taken⁹.

Extending your contract when a new car is delayed

Factory delays are common enough that lenders build some flexibility into the end of an agreement. Where you cannot meet extra payments, you may be able to delay them for a while or add them to your loan, depending on your track record with the lender¹⁰.

Two other things tend to run out at the same time as the finance. A manufacturer's warranty ends after a set number of years, or could end sooner if the car covers a certain number of miles¹¹. And your insurance renewal will fall due, where renewing at least 20 days before the renewal period ends can put you in line for discounts and a better rate¹².

If you are extending because a replacement car has not arrived, check the position on all three: the finance, the warranty and the insurance. An extended finance agreement on a car whose warranty has expired leaves you carrying repair costs that would otherwise have been covered.

Returning a car: what to hand back and what you may be charged

Returning a car at the end of an agreement is a defined process, and the charges that follow turn on condition rather than on the fact of returning it.

On hire purchase or conditional sale, the car can be returned, which ends the agreement, but no payments already made are returned; if more than half of the agreement has been paid there is nothing more to pay⁶. On a PCP the car can be returned early if payments become unaffordable, but there could be more to pay if this is done⁶.

What you hand back is the car, its keys, and the documentation that goes with it. Fair wear and tear is expected; damage beyond that is chargeable, and providers publish their own standards for what counts as each. Because those standards and any charges are set by the provider and change, the figures that apply to you are the ones in your agreement and on Stellantis Financial Services' own site.

Two practical points. First, tell DVLA when a vehicle is sold or transferred, taken off the road, written off by an insurer, scrapped or stolen¹³. Second, if you are selling or part exchanging rather than returning, the seller gets a refund for any tax left on the car when it is sold¹⁴.

Withdrawing or cancelling: rules differ by agreement type

The right to cancel depends on how the agreement was sold and what type it is, and the two are often confused.

Where a contract is a distance or off-premises contract, the cancellation period is 14 days¹⁵. That covers most agreements arranged away from the dealer's premises, including online and at a distance. It does not apply to on-premises contracts, which is the position for an agreement signed in a dealership¹⁵.

For financial services distance contracts, the right to cancel applies only to the initial agreement where the contract comprises an initial service agreement followed by successive operations or a series of separate operations of the same nature performed over time¹⁶. There is also no right to cancel a distance contract whose price depends on fluctuations in the financial market outside the firm's control that may occur during the cancellation period¹⁷. A firm may offer longer or additional cancellation rights voluntarily, but if it does, those should be on terms at least as favourable to the consumer as the standard ones unless the differences are clearly explained¹⁸.

To cancel, the model cancellation form can be used, or any other clear statement setting out the decision to cancel¹⁹. Cancelling the main contract also cancels any attached contract which is not of a type listed in the rules²⁰, and on withdrawal the parties' obligations under the contract terminate, with the consumer not liable for any costs or charges in the cases the rules cover²¹.

The important limit for car finance is that statutory voluntary termination under the Consumer Credit Act is a different right from cancellation, and it applies to hire purchase and PCP agreements rather than to PCH².

Managing your agreement online and settling early

Stellantis Financial Services runs an online account at www.stellantisfinancialservices.co.uk, where you can view your agreement, update your details and request a settlement figure¹. Registration follows the pattern used by most finance providers: personal details, identity verification questions, an activation code sent by post or text, then a username and a secure password or passcode²².

Settling early means paying off the outstanding balance before the agreement's end date. Under the settlement information rules, where credit is repayable in instalments, the assumed settlement date is 28 days after the lender receives your request for a statement, rather than the date of the first instalment due after those 28 days have elapsed³. Early settlement itself takes place where the indebtedness is discharged or becomes payable before the time fixed by the agreement, including on refinancing or on breach²³.

Once you have a figure, the practical point is timing. A settlement figure is calculated to a date, and it changes as further payments fall due and interest accrues, so a figure obtained weeks before you intend to pay will not be the amount you actually hand over.

A settlement figure is calculated to a date roughly a month after you ask for it.

If your car is written off or stolen

When your vehicle is written off, your insurance company pays you the current value of the vehicle, instead of the cost of repairing it⁴. That is the point at which a finance agreement can turn into a problem, because the outstanding balance on the agreement is not calculated from the car's market value.

If the payout is less than the amount owed, the shortfall remains owed under the credit agreement. Whether your policy closes that gap depends on what you bought. When Which? analysed the policies of the best and worst car insurers, 15% would provide a temporary replacement vehicle as standard if yours was stolen or written off²⁴.

Theft claims run on their own timetable. You may have to wait up to six weeks with some insurers before they will settle any claim for the loss of the vehicle²⁵. If the vehicle is found, tell your insurance company and give them precise details of its whereabouts²⁵. If you are offered a stolen vehicle for sale, or one accompanied by stolen or forged documents, contact the DVLA or a local police station⁷.

On a lease or hire agreement, the finance company can take the car back if you miss payments⁶. Where a no-fault accident leads to credit hire or credit repair arrangements, the Financial Ombudsman Service has set out how it handles disputes, including the position where the third-party insurer refuses to pay and the consumer might be held responsible for covering the costs²⁶.

Struggling with payments: what support is available

The first step with any payment problem is to contact the provider. The Payment Systems Regulator's guidance is that the best thing to do first is contact your account provider²⁷.

Lenders are expected to have tools for customers in arrears. In the mortgage market, for example, a range of suitable tools will be made available to customers in arrears to address the various repayment issues customers may face²⁸. The same principle applies to consumer credit: StepChange has argued that utilities providers, creditors, local government and landlords should examine whether there is more they can do to help those with fluctuating incomes meet their regular payments²⁹.

If you are dealing with several debts at once, free and impartial help is available. StepChange and National Debtline both advise on car finance debt, and the debt guide sets out the options in full. Where a payment has been taken under a continuous payment authority after you withdrew it, your card issuer should give you a refund, including any interest or charges added to your account because the payment was taken⁹.

How Stellantis Financial Services is regulated

Stellantis Financial Services is a firm regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority³¹. Its permissions cover exercising or having the right to exercise the owner's rights and duties under a regulated consumer hire agreement, entering into regulated credit agreements as lender, and entering into regulated consumer hire agreements as owner¹. The company is registered in England and Wales, company number 01024322, incorporated on 16 September 1971, and its status is active³¹.

Being regulated means the firm must follow FCA rules, including the conduct rules on cancellation and on how it treats customers in arrears. It does not mean your money is protected in the way a bank deposit is. Car finance is a credit agreement, not a deposit, so the Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not cover it. What protects you instead is the agreement itself, the Consumer Credit Act rights that sit behind it, and the Financial Ombudsman Service if a complaint cannot be resolved.

If you have a complaint, raise it with Stellantis Financial Services first. If you are not satisfied with the final response, the Financial Ombudsman Service can look at it. Complaints about mis-sold car finance follow a separate route, and the consumer protection guide explains how the ombudsman and the rules work together.