What do you consider the main focus of the auto finance industry in 2020?
Laurie Foster, founder, Foster Growth Strategies: “This length-of-the-loan thing is going to be something that they have to answer because everybody’s underwater on their cars. And so that’s going to slow down the pace of people buying their next car.”
Shawn Allgood, head of Chrysler Capital and auto relationships, Santander Consumer USA Holdings: “This is the year where e-contracting will likely become more and more common for dealers. I think dealers are going to force lenders to get involved in that, and technology that includes early fraud detection.”
Alex Yurchenko, vice president of data science and analytics, Black Book: “Managing risk. Their own risk. The amount of loans is increasing, the length of the loan is increasing. Lease rates are at a record height. So they have a lot of exposure.”
Kyle Birch, president of North American operations, GM Financial: “There’s going to be a lot of focus on the digital environment and how we make the customer experience better from the point of buying the vehicle, getting approved for the loan or lease on the vehicle and how that carries all the way through to the portfolio.”
Melinda Zabritski, senior director of automotive financial solutions, Experian: “Certainly I think lenders responding to potential rate decreases and again, a little more competition happening from the rate-stand front. …The affordability aspect, seeing a lot more movement around used-vehicle financing and making sure that lenders are offering the best used financing out there.”
Patty Covington, partner, Hudson Cook: “Everybody’s trying to figure out what they can do with AI. They ought to be focused on privacy. Because with the California Consumer Privacy Act, that is going to have some huge ramifications and it’s going to trickle into other states.”
Zviki Ben-Ishay, CEO, Lightico: “As the generations move forward, and that people are more used to the Netflix kind of experience, we should be giving them an end-to-end digital experience. When it comes to interacting either with the dealerships or with the lenders themselves, it’s time to move forward.”
Justin Oesterle, CEO, RouteOne: “Continued evolution and adoption of digital retail tools — both in store and online. … This can mean taking the finance process online, creating an in-store iPad-enabled process to educate and sell protection products or e-contracting a deal.”