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EFG Companies and Northwood University Announce F&I Innovator of the Year Student Competitors and F&I Mentors

EFG Companies, the innovator behind the award-winning Hyundai Assurance program, together with Northwood University, today announced student competitors and F&I mentors participating in the first annual F&I Innovator of the Year Award competition.

The competition will pit six teams of Northwood’s junior and senior undergraduate automotive marketing and management students against one another to conceptualize and build a new F&I product while earning course credit. 

Each team includes an F&I director who will serve as a mentor and provide beneficial insight into the daily inner workings of automotive F&I.

“Because of their practical experience within dealerships, the mentors’ knowledge will be invaluable to the teams,” said John Pappanastos, President and CEO, EFG Companies. “The directors will help the teams understand compliance and its increasing impact on F&I, the changing profile of consumers, and the focus on client retention.”

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Compliance

Are You Prepared for Expanding CFPB Influence?

Karen Klees, Certified Consumer Credit Compliance Professional, EFG Companies

 

Contributing Author: Karen Klees, Certified Consumer Credit Compliance Professional, EFG Companies

For the past few months, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has made headlines with the implementation of their Larger Participant Rule. Now that more lenders are feeling the pressure, dealers can expect the shadow of the CFPB to creep over their operations, starting with documentation.

If you haven’t implemented a version of the National Auto Dealer Association’s (NADA) Fair Credit Compliance Guidelines, now is the time to do so. Expect to have banks, captives, finance companies, etc. asking for your written policies and procedures, as well as documented training, within the next few months as they prepare for CFPB investigations.

The CFPB initially preferred the establishment of a flat rate that does not change from one customer to the next, resulting in a flat fee or a fixed percentage of the amount financed for dealership compensation. However, in their recent settlement with Honda, they allowed for NADA’s guidelines to be implemented.

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F&I

Are You Appealing to Millennials?

Gabe-Aldrete-Blog-Headshot

 

Contributing Author: Gabe Aldrete, Vice President, Dealer Services, EFG Companies

When you hear the term “Millennials” paired with the term “car,” what comes to mind? Do you automatically think, “Millennials aren’t interested in cars?” For the past few years, it seemed like a new article was published every month stating that the reason Millennials weren’t buying cars was due to personal preference.

Today, economics has proven that assertion false. According to J.D. Power & Associates, Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2004) accounted for 27 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year. Millennials have already surpassed Generation X to become the second-largest group of new car buyers after Baby Boomers, and each year, the influence of the Baby Boomer generation recedes and Millennial buying power increases.

It turns out, personal preference had very little to do with Millennials approaching the auto industry. Rather, it had all to do with the economy, the job market, and wage growth. Most of the Millennials with buying power today entered the job market during the economic upheaval in the Great Recession. Because of the lack of prospects, some returned to school, while others moved in with parents or got roommates and stuck it out in low-paying or part-time jobs that did not utilize their post-high school training or education.

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