Lending Curve
The recent Federal Reserve Beige Book offered an interesting perspective for the auto lending market. Uncertainty around trade policy was pervasive across all 12 districts, with the majority showing flat to down growth. Non-auto consumer spending was lower overall – but most districts saw moderate to robust sales of vehicles.
Point Predictive released its 2025 Auto Lending Fraud Report, revealing some startling data. In 2024, lenders’ estimated fraud loss exposure reached approximately $9.2 billion – an increase of 16.5% year over year. First-party fraud accounted for 69% of all auto lending risk. While these numbers are alarming, the good news is that your best defense is your employees. Your job is to ensure they are up to date on their training.
Credit unions continued to demonstrate resilience in navigating some of the challenges of the last quarter: income declined from the third quarter; provisions and actual charge-offs rose, but auto lending still weakened. Providing a snapshot of the overall industry, the nation’s Top 10 credit unions in the U.S. suffered a drop in ROA and higher-than-expected credit losses. While the Top 10 bolstered their provisions for the quarter, and charge-offs were smaller, delinquency rates rose, reflecting some potential cracks in the overall health of the economy.
