From “Other” to E-bikes: Using ESMA Free-Text Fields to Study Germany’s E-Bike Leasing Market
Some of the most useful information in ESMA templates sits in free-text fields. In leasing data, the “Collateral Type” list field can be too broad, and categories such as “Other vehicle” can include very different assets.
Using the free-text “Model” field, the research team at European DataWarehouse identified e-bike leases in German leasing securitisations and tagged them in EDW’s All In One Database (AIO).
WHAT WE DID AND WHY IT MATTERS
• The EDW research team used a calculated field, collateral_description, derived from the free-text “Model” field to add detail that the “Collateral Type” list field lacks.
• Fields LESL66 and LESL67 were scanned for e-bike maker names and e-bike terms to identify candidate records, then checked results manually.
• Non-electric bikes (“non-electric bikes” in AIO) were also flagged and bikes where the powertrain was unclear (“bike” in AIO).
METHOD
- Build a candidate string list from the free-text field
The EDW research team first looked for bike makers such as Cube, Haibike, Kalkhoff, and Riese & Müller, and for strings explicitly indicating an e-bike. These strings were used to scan LESL67 (“model” field) and produce a candidate set for review. - Use text analytics to widen coverage, then validate manually
This is a good use case for machine-assisted text mining to surface candidate strings where “Other vehicle” is in fact a bike or e-bike. The final list was then reviewed manually to remove false positives. - Tag outcomes in AIO for analysis
The resulting records were tagged in AIO using “Collateral_Description”. Alongside e-bikes, tags were created for non-electric bikes and for bikes where the powertrain was unclear.
COVERAGE AND EXPOSURE: HOW MANY DEALS INCLUDE E-BIKES
Fourteen German leasing securitisations include at least some e-bikes. Before the first TREVA deals, exposure was small. From 2020-Q3 to 2021-Q2, roughly 300+ e-bike leases were outstanding at a time, for about EUR 1 million outstanding. From 2021-Q3 onward, exposure rose sharply with the first TREVA deal (Exhibit 1a).
CONCENTRATION: TREVA DRIVES MOST OF THE OBSERVED INCREASE
TREVA deals drive most of the observed increase in e-bike exposure. TREVA Equipment Finance S.A. Compartment 2021-1 added EUR 47+ million of e-bike leases in 2021-Q3, and TREVA Equipment Finance S.A. Compartment 2024-1 added a further EUR 140+ million in 2024-Q2. Most remaining observations come from “abc SME Lease Germany SA” Compartments 8 to 10.
Exhibit 1a: E-Bikes in EDW are Concentrated in Two ABS Leasing Securitisations.
Source: European DataWarehouse
BASELINE WITHOUT TREVA
To understand the broader market beyond TREVA, we also plot the series with TREVA removed (Exhibit 1b). In 2020 Q3, there were 300 E-bikes worth EUR 1 million.
Exhibit 1b: E-Bike Lease Amounts Without TREVA Deals.
Source: European DataWarehouse
Even without the TREVA deals, there are at least 1,500 e-bike leases have been outstanding from 2023-Q3 onward (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2: Outstanding Number of Leases of E-Bikes in Germany (Without TREVA Deals).
Source: European DataWarehouse, All In One Database.
PERFORMANCE: SHORT-TERM DELINQUENCIES COMPARED WITH CAR LEASES
E-bike leases show lower short-term delinquencies than car leases. An index was built (Exhibit 3) from our German e-bike subset and compared it with car leases in the same leasing universe (LESL71 = CARX) to keep the comparison like for like; we also show the same index made with the German leasing deals of the auto ABS template. We focus on delinquencies of more than 29 and less than 90 days. E-bike performance is better than the auto segment in this dataset, and both show a rising delinquency trend from 2021-Q4.
For context, car leases in the leasing template are a small segment versus German auto ABS overall, at about EUR 100 million outstanding on average versus about EUR 9 billion for the auto lease sample extracted from out German auto ABS table.
Exhibit 3: Short Term Delinquencies of E-Bikes lower Than for Comparable Auto Leases.
Source: European DataWarehouse; auto data found in same deals as e-bikes.
WHO LEASES E-BIKES: SECTOR DISTRIBUTION USING NACE (LESL15)
E-bike lessees show up across all industries. Lessee NACE codes (LESL15) are mapped to two calculated fields (Industry_1 and Industry_2) in the All In One Database SME and Leases tables. Delivery services, for example NACE 53.20 (Other postal and courier activities), are an obvious use case, but the leases are not confined to that sector. In fact, less than 0.1% of e-bike leases are to this sector (Exhibit 4). The IT and financial sectors are overrepresented compared with all German ABS leases, perhaps because such jobs are more represented in large urban areas where an e-bike can be most useful for commuting employees.
Exhibit 4: E-Bike Lessees are Found Across all Sectors.
Source: European DataWarehouse; using the German ABS leases segment.
GERMANY CONTEXT: “DIENSTRAD” AND LEASING PLATFORMS
In Germany, many e-bikes are leased as a tax-efficient employee benefit (“Dienstrad”) via employers. This means the bike is a benefit rather than a work tool, unlike almost any other leased asset. Germany also has established platforms for structured e-bike financing, such as BusinessBike, Lease a Bike, and JobRad. Deloitte estimates that about 80% of leased bikes are e-bikes, which matches what we see in our sample. When it comes to brands, EDW counted 40+ different brands of e-bikes in our data, but the most popular brands top the list, starting with the market leader Cube, followed by KTM, Haibike, Gazelle, Riese & Müller and Kalkhoff.
CONCLUSION
This work shows why free-text fields matter. They describe the financed asset in a way that broad list fields cannot. By scanning and validating LESL67 and tagging results via “Collateral_Description” in AIO, “Other vehicle” can be turned into analysis-ready categories and quantify exposure, performance, and lessee profiles.
FURTHER READING
Auto ABS in Focus: Comparing Loans vs Leases and Captives vs Non-Captives.
1 See Deloitte, Der Deutsche Diensradleasing-Markt