American Honda Finance Corp. remained among the nation’s top three new-vehicle financiers in 2022 despite giving up a large piece of its market share, according to Experian statistics on the top 20 auto lenders in 2022.
The Honda captive finance company was involved in 5.13 percent of new-vehicle loans and leases last year, down 3.61 percentage points from 2021, tying for third place with Ford Motor Credit Co. In 2021, Honda was No. 2, and Ford ranked sixth. Toyota’s captive finance operations — Toyota Financial Services and Southeast Toyota Finance’s World Omni Financial Corp. — ranked first again in 2022 with a combined 11.92 percent of the market.
A Honda spokesperson cited inventory for its decline.
“As with others in the industry, Honda’s overall vehicle sales have been impacted by global supply challenges for the past few years to varying degrees,” Honda spokesperson Chris Martin said in a statement. “As you would expect, these ups and downs in available inventory have affected our market share, while demand has remained strong for our award-winning lineup. Things began to turn around in the second half of last year as our inventory levels and sales increased. We have continued that positive momentum in 2023 with dramatic increases in sales volume over the past few months.”
Chase Auto experienced the second-largest decline in share among new-vehicle lenders, dropping 1.47 points year over year to hold 4.77 percent of the sector. Its ranking fell from No. 4 to No. 5.
Volkswagen’s VW Credit also lost more than a point of new-vehicle share, dropping 1.34 points to a 1.8 percent share of the industry’s loans and leases and falling out of the top 10, ranking No. 14 among new-vehicle lenders in 2022. The company has not returned a request for comment.
No new-vehicle financier grew share to such a degree.
Navy Federal Credit Union, which ranked No. 19 and held 1.16 percent of the market, saw the largest growth, at 0.38 points. Ford Motor Credit was the second-largest gainer, at 0.34 points.
General Motors’ combined captive finance operations achieved 0.31 points of growth, held 7 percent of the new-vehicle market, and rose from No. 3 to No 2. GM Financial had grown its share by 0.71 points year over year, but a leasing program the automaker conducts with Wells Fargo lost 0.4 points of share.
Wells Fargo Auto lost the most market share among used-vehicle lenders, falling 1.35 percentage points to write 2.57 percent of loans and leases. However, it remained in the used-vehicle top 5, at No. 5, down from third place in 2021.
Wells Fargo’s annual report observed that while its auto loan portfolio grew on average in 2022, a year-over-year comparison of the balance on Dec. 31, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2022, showed a decline. The bank attributed this drop to “lower origination volumes reflecting credit tightening actions and rising interest rates.”
“In our auto business, we have adjusted policies to address risk associated with collateral value declines and inflationary pressures on consumers’ ability to pay,” CEO Charles Scharf wrote in the introduction to the report.
Chase Auto lost 0.99 points to control 2.24 percent of used-vehicle loans and leases, dropping from the No. 4 used-vehicle lender in 2021 to eighth place in 2022. Capital One Auto Finance financed 5.22 percent of used-vehicle business, a 0.7-point decline but still good enough to keep it the No. 1 used-vehicle financier in the country.
Ally Financial finished second among used-vehicle lenders, followed by Westlake Financial Services at No. 3 and Santander Consumer Finance in fourth.
No lender grabbed significant used-vehicle market share in 2022. The largest growth came from Navy Federal Credit Union, which ranked No. 12 with 1.6 percent of used-vehicle loans and leases, up 0.26 points.
Looking at the pool of new- and used-vehicle loans and leases combined, American Honda Finance, Chase Auto and Wells Fargo suffered the industry’s largest share declines.
Honda held 2.35 percent of all 2022 loans and leases, down 1.52 points from a year earlier. It fell from the fifth-largest auto lender in the country to seventh place.
Chase Auto dropped 1.24 points to a 3.22 percent share but kept itself in the top 5, at No. 5. Wells Fargo held 2.69 percent of the auto finance market, down 0.85 points, to come in sixth.
Amy Brooks, Chase Auto national retail sales executive, said at the Auto Finance Summit East conference in Nashville in May that while Chase Auto took less of the market in 2022, rising interest rates have meant “it’s kind of turned for us a little bit,” and Chase has been gaining market share so far in 2023. Chase worked hard in 2022 “to set ourselves up for this year,” she said.
Chase spokesperson Elizabeth Childs wrote in an email last month that the lender had been losing market share faster than others “in reaction to increasing cost of funds.”
“We have seen competitors raising rates over the past several months, and in turn, we have gained share,” she wrote.
The top five lenders for all loans and leases in 2022 were the Toyota captives, Capital One, Ally, the GM captives and Chase.
Navy Federal Credit Union, No. 16, improved the most among the top 20 overall lenders, adding 0.32 points of share and writing 1.43 percent of all new- and used-vehicle loans and leases. No one else grew by even a quarter point.