UK schools wasting millions on IT finance charges

Poor IT financing costs the UK education sector more than £100,000 every working day, it was claimed today.

Smartfundit.com, a financing and technology marketplace, said that 12p in every £1 borrowed to finance IT purchases is wasted on admin costs, charges and inflated interest rates.

If schools cut out the broker middleman and sourced IT finance via independent online marketplaces, they could collectively increase their IT spending power by £26.6m per annum, according to Smartfundit.com.

This would be enough to equip every secondary school in the UK with a classroom of PCs over the next two years, the company said.

Smartfundit.com compared costs for three different scenarios - sourcing finance via a broker, via a technology vendor and direct with finance providers - and compared these against sourcing via an online IT finance marketplace.

"Sourcing specialist IT finance can be a complex task, made all the more difficult by the lack of transparent advice and information," said Suki Gallagher, chief executive at Smartfundit.com

"Unsurprisingly, bursars are falling foul of hidden costs and are unlikely to get the best deal possible.

"Our research underscores the financial imperative for looking at alternative ways of sourcing finance, such as letting finance providers bid for your businesses online.

"It is about time UK buyers took back control and turned IT financing into a borrowers' market."

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