GMAC Financial Services, a leading car finance company is expanding its operations at their UK headquarters in South Wales by creating 100 new jobs there.

The company is part General Motors and is based in Nantgarw near Caerphilly employing 170 people.

The jobs boost to Nantgarw comes after it was decided to move the customer service and debt recovery arm of the company from Watford to South Wales.

GMAC initially opened its site in Nantgarw five years ago. From here they managed consumer finance deals for Vauxhall, Saab and Chevrolet cars which are sold through 600 dealers across the UK.

The company also specialises in lending to commercial enterprises that includes providing finances for management buyouts.

Theo Kortland, managing director of GMAC said, We are currently recruiting for 100 new posts and plan to have the staff in place by the end of the year.

One of the reasons we moved to Wales back in 2000 was the availability of a highly skilled and motivated workforce.

We are again recruiting locally, in a move which will take our workforce up to 270.

He also stressed that the relocation was not to open a call centre in its place and that GMAC was maintaining its headquarters in Wales. We have no desire to move the operation off-shore. We are not a call centre. What we do is the management of relationships with retailers and end users [car consumers].

We invest a great deal in providing opportunities for our staff to develop and have long-term careers with us.

Mr Kortland described the car finance industry in the UK as highly competitive as consumers are always demanding better deals. This can be seen by the increase in zero interest finance deals that are on offer.

He added, We have seen car price harmonisation in the UK with mainland Europe. The marketplace is being driven by customers and at this point in time around 40 per cent of our new car finance deals are sold at zero per cent interest.

Each year the centre in Nantgarw processes approximately 60,000 car finance deals. Mr Kortland said he can see confidence growing in the South Wales economy since GMAC opened their operation there.

Back in 2000 we were the first sizeable financial services operation to move into this part of Wales, but since then a number of competitors have also located here. Wales, and in particular Cardiff, has seen enormous growth, particularly in the last two years. I don't think the rest of the UK really appreciates the transformation which has taken place here.