Final Rentals, the Cardiff-based car rental technology platform, has made deposit-free rentals available to every franchise partner across its network, spanning more than 65 countries. The service, introduced through a partnership with fintech company Cardoo, replaces the conventional security deposit with a financial guarantee funded by a small daily fee paid by the customer. Rental operators retain protection against vehicle damage, traffic fines, fuel shortfalls and administrative charges.
The rollout, which Final Rentals says is a first for a global car rental franchise network of this scale, takes effect immediately. Partners can activate the feature through the company’s digital dashboard, either as an opt-in upgrade at the booking stage or applied across an entire fleet. More than 100,000 rentals are processed through the platform annually.
The problem with deposits
Security deposits in the car rental sector have been a persistent source of customer friction. Typical deposit amounts range from €500 to €2,500, tying up meaningful credit headroom for the duration of a rental. Research cited by Final Rentals indicates fewer than 5% of customers read the booking terms explaining deposit requirements before reaching the rental desk, and 68% of deposit disputes are traced to poorly communicated terms rather than actual vehicle damage. That last figure points to an operational cost for operators as much as a customer-experience problem: disputes consume staff time and can generate negative reviews regardless of merit.
Founder and chief executive Ammar Akhtar said he had long wanted to make traditional deposits obsolete. “Customers shouldn’t have to lock away hundreds or even thousands of pounds just to hire a car, and rental businesses shouldn’t have to spend time dealing with avoidable disputes,” he said. The deal was negotiated by Ricky Gamble, Final Rentals’ head of sales, with Cardoo founder and chief executive Alisher Murtazaev.
Market context and competitive positioning
The deposit-free model sits within a broader trend of embedded financial products being layered into non-financial service platforms. Cardoo, which also operates in the real estate sector, says it has facilitated more than 240,000 deposit-free rentals for more than 700 partners across 30 countries, eliminating what it estimates to be over $200 million in customer security deposits. Those figures lend the product some commercial validation, though they are company-reported and unaudited.
The car rental sector has been relatively slow to adopt embedded fintech compared with hospitality and travel booking, where instalment payments, insurance add-ons and virtual card products are now standard fare. Final Rentals’ model, connecting customers with independent local operators through a franchise and technology layer, positions it as an aggregator with enough network scale to make a standardised financial product viable across markets. That is a structurally different proposition from a single-brand rental chain, where product rollouts are internally mandated rather than partner-elected.
The relevant regulatory read-across is modest for now: the financial guarantee product sits closer to surety or insurance than to consumer credit, and the jurisdictional patchwork across 65 markets will require Cardoo to maintain compliant product structures in each. The EU’s evolving consumer-finance disclosure requirements and the UK’s Consumer Duty, which places a duty of good outcomes on firms involved in financial product distribution, are both worth monitoring as the product scales. Neither appears to create an immediate barrier, but the disclosure framework around the daily fee and the total cost of the guarantee relative to a traditional deposit will attract scrutiny from national regulators if the product reaches meaningful volume.
Final Rentals was founded in Cardiff in 2019 and has grown to its current footprint without announcing any public funding rounds. The company did not disclose financials or revenue in this release.
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