Tag: Brien Joyce

Categories
Business Growth

What’s Your Value Proposition for 2018?

Brien Joyce Vice President EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Brien Joyce
Vice President
EFG Companies

When you walk into a dealership, what value do you bring to the F&I office besides another loan for which their customers may qualify? In 2018, F&I managers across the country are concerned with three hot buttons:

  • Maintaining compliance
  • Maximizing profitability
  • Shortening transaction time

With a myriad of compliance procedures and paperwork on hand, F&I managers have a difficult job when it comes to balancing compliance, profitability and time management. The best way to separate your loan from the competition is to help them with this balance. How do you do this?

Provide clear standards for loan approvals. This not only helps with compliance, but helps F&I managers ensure that they submit well-qualified customers for your loans. You know your qualifications, but how well do F&I managers know them? Look at how often you deny auto loans. If that number is high, it could be because your standards are unclear to the F&I officer.

Continue reading “What’s Your Value Proposition for 2018?”
Categories
Business Growth Compliance

Finding the Perfect Balance

Brien Joyce Vice President EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Brien Joyce
Vice President
EFG Companies

From the very first time one person loaned another person their hard-earned money or goods, there has been a level of risk on whether they would ever see their money or property again. As the lender, finding that balance between risk and reward created the concepts of payment plans, requiring borrowers to pay back more than the total amount they originally received, as well as sophisticated algorithms for lenders to use to determine how lenient or restrictive to make their lending policies.

We are currently in a highly contemplative and speculative time when it comes to determining that perfect balance in auto finance. After seven consecutive years of vehicles sales gains, the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is forecasting that vehicle sales will total out at 17.1 million new vehicles in 2017, slightly lower than total sales in 2016. This plateau could extend into 2018, or we could potentially even see the beginnings of a period of decline, or even a period of growth and expansion. It could go either way.

Lending practices differ greatly depending on whether an economy is expanding, plateauing, or declining. Hence, the period of reflection. Of course, a plateau at 17.1 million vehicles means that the consumer appetite for auto finance is still strong.

According to Experian’s latest State of Auto Finance Market Report, the total automotive open loan balance reached another record high in the second quarter of 2017, topping $1.1 billion. Average loan amounts remained high across all credit tiers, as well as across both new and used vehicles.

Continue reading “Finding the Perfect Balance”
Categories
Business Growth

Preparing for a Surge in Auto Financing

Brien Joyce Vice President EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Brien Joyce
Vice President
EFG Companies

While everyone is following the news coverage of the impact of Hurricane Harvey, the estimated 500 auto dealers in the Houston area affected by the hurricane are already working to get back up and running. According to Automotive News and Wards Auto, dealers in Southeast Texas expect a surge in car buying as people begin receiving insurance payouts for their damaged vehicles. This means that there will also be a surge in auto financing, and lenders will need to be prepared to help dealers manage their time with each customer wisely.

It can be expected that there will be a period of “downtime” while both dealers and consumers survey their homes and businesses to understand the full scope of the damage. This “downtime” provides lenders the perfect opportunity to prepare their operations for when consumers in the seventh most populated market in the U.S. begin car shopping en masse.

One of the biggest challenges during a car-buying surge is simply servicing the increased traffic. Dealers will often extend their hours as part of their overall strategy to capture as many sales as possible. With that in mind, now is a good time to begin preparing your team to work longer hours to ensure auto loan officers are available during longer dealership hours.

It’s also important to remember just how easy it can be to crash an online platform when a large number of users try to use it all at once. Take the time now to work out a solution with your IT team for a surge in online applications sent via your dealer portals and through your website directly from consumers. Preparing your digital platform to have the bandwidth to handle a significant increase in traffic will help make sure you are able to capture as many loans as possible with no disruption to dealer service.

Continue reading “Preparing for a Surge in Auto Financing”