In many countries, consumers’ buying behaviour and mindset are progressively changing, going from ownership spirit to solutions like renting, subscription or pay per use.

In addition, people are increasingly looking for a one-click experience, even in their relationships with their banks, from onboarding to electronic contract signing. No more paper and waiting: the process must be smart, agile and fast.  

For many years, people's main goal was to acquire the various elements of their lives: house, car, telephone, TV, furniture, tools, CDs, DVDs, etc. The possession of these products was a matter of social position and improvement.  

The mentality has changed in recent years, with a level that depends on countries, generations, cultures and social categories. 

According to a study published by ReportLinkers in May 2023, the global electronics and home appliances rental market is expected to grow by 13% every year to reach €105 billion in 2027, almost double the level of 2022.

In terms of countries, as is often the case, we've seen a standard step in the transformation, starting with the US, where the path of consumption through rental and subscription solutions began a few years ago.  

Today, in the USA, you can rent anything, per year, per month, per day, from jewelry to furniture. Many companies have been created to offer their rental solutions for any good. This new trend reached the old continent, starting with the UK, then gradually moving to the rest of Europe, from north to south.  

In the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany, renting solutions are already well known. In France, many products that were unimaginable a few years ago, such as beds, sofas, bicycles, and smartphones, are offered through renting.  

Most of the retailers are using this rental offer to promote their products. In Germany, the company Grover, founded in 2015 and specialized in the renting of consumer electronics, has become a unicorn 5 years later and is now expanding its business in many countries around the world.  

In the countries of Southern Europe, the ownership spirit is still strong and the rental market is growing, but at a slower pace.  

The best way to see the evolution of the rental market is to analyze the car industry, where renting products has been possible for some time. Globally, in Europe, in 2021, 58% of people have opted for renting to get a new car, 10 percent more than in 2013. If we break it down by country, the levels vary considerably. In the countries of northern Europe, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the weight of renting is around 70%.  

In France, more than half of car buyers chose the renting solution in 2022, with a strong increase in the last decade. As for Spain, the renting market has multiplied by 3 in 10 years, with almost 30% of cars acquired through renting in 2023.

As mentioned in the introduction, this change in consumer behavior is accompanied by the search for a quick and easy onboarding and contracting process. As a result, retailers need to ensure the best customer experience, taking into account this new way of consumption and a strict level of user expectations. The current relationship between retailers and banks in Europe doesn't allow this transition, as these two worlds have heavy and archaic IT systems that don't allow integration agile enough to propose new products such as renting in a fast time. Retailers and the banks still use heavy interfaces to interconnect, with a huge waste of time and money. 

Rentall & Partners is a Spanish fintech with an international spirit, dedicated to different financing solutions, including renting. Thanks to a fintech like Rentall, which uses the latest technology of APIs, the connection between these two worlds is realized in a few months. Retailers can quickly launch their innovative rental offer, while banks can add it to their product catalogue.  

As an example, Rentall enabled Carrefour Spain to launch its online renting offer in less than 3 months in October 2022, with Cetelem as financing partner. Thanks to the technology proposed by Rentall, the renting option is included in the Carrefour website and the customer can easily select the product, the rental period, realize the onboarding and e-sign the contract in a few clicks. Another example is the collaboration with FNAC B2B and the collaboration with PcComponentes B2B where the rental was implemented in a few weeks.

To recap, we can confirm that the way of acquiring products has drastically changed, thanks to the different rental and subscription solutions that have appeared everywhere.

However, this transformation differs from country to country, depending on the generation, but also on the culture. In addition, the new technologies developed by Rentall allow retailers to connect with banks with agility to propose the rental offer in their catalogues, ensuring the best customer experience.