The collapse of Arena Television in late 2021 remains one of the most sobering episodes in recent UK asset finance history.

Arena Television’s absconded directors and lessors’ missing millions

What appeared to be a thriving broadcast business was, in reality, a meticulously orchestrated fraud. Dozens of lenders, more than 50, by some counts, were exposed to a web of falsified documents, phantom equipment, and duplicated finance agreements. The aftermath was devastating and made painfully clear that the industry lacked a way to see the full picture.

In the wake of Arena, the industry faced a reckoning. How had so many institutions, with supposedly strong risk mitigation frameworks, failed to detect what was ultimately a shared vulnerability? The answer: a systemic lack of visibility. Traditional tools, credit reference agencies, internal fraud checks, Companies House data, couldn’t provide a cross-lender view of live agreements. The result was a perfect storm for coordinated fraud.

Had the asset finance industry’s long-standing reluctance to share information been exploited by Arena’s absconded directors? It certainly seemed that way.

Fraud prevention after Arena Television: will anything change?

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Out of that crisis came Acquis Lumia, launched in 2022 by Acquis Data Services, a division of Acquis Insurance Management Ltd. Lumia offered the industry what it never had before: a collaborative platform where asset finance providers share key data points from active agreements, anonymised and aggregated into a central register. It’s a simple but powerful concept, compare new applications against a wider market dataset to spot red flags in real time.

Under the Acquis Lumia platform, each participating lender submits a monthly file containing seven key data fields for every active asset finance agreement.

The data includes the agreement number, a unique identifier for each finance deal, and the lessor ID, which indicates the submitting lender. It also captures the start and expiry dates of the agreement, providing insight into the duration and overlap of borrowing arrangements. To identify the borrower, the company registration number is submitted, along with the lessee company name, which is anonymised before being stored in the central register. Finally, the net book value of the asset, its current value on the lender’s books is recorded, giving a financial reference point for the agreement.

And now, with Grenke announced as Lumia’s 40th member, the platform’s growth is difficult to ignore. It includes major banks like Lombard, BNP Paribas, and HSBC Equipment Finance, as well as independents like Liberty Leasing. The pace of adoption points to a sector that no longer sees collaboration as a compromise, but as a necessity.

There are signs it may be working. According to GBG data, cited in the Cifas Fraudscape 2025 report, identity fraud in the asset finance sector has dropped more than 80% in the past year alone, from 7,837 cases in 2023 to just 1,560 in 2024. It’s the sharpest decline of any sector. The report cites “targeted anti-fraud measures” as a key factor. Could Lumia be among them? It’s a compelling possibility.

Asset finance fraud plummets 80% amid sector crackdown: Cifas

To be clear, Lumia isn’t a silver bullet. The fraud landscape continues to evolve, with increasingly sophisticated threats targeting even the most robust lenders. Also, Acquis is not alone in seeking an industry-wide solution in the UK. But Lumia does represent a fundamental shift, from isolated risk management to shared intelligence.

With Grenke now on board and the platform reaching its 40-member milestone, this moment feels like a turning point. Is it confirmation that the fraudsters are losing ground? More likely, it is that it is too soon to tell. But for the first time in years, the asset finance sector has a tool built not just to react to fraud, but to anticipate it.

And that might just make all the difference.