John Huetter

Only 1 of 48 banks had eased their requirements for car loans in the three months leading up to the Federal Reserve's latest quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey. The rest tightened or preserved their policies.

Automaker incentives, lower dealership margin and vehicle mix have begun to offer car shoppers some affordability assistance, J.D. Power industry solutions director Kristen Lanzavecchia told the 2023 Auto Finance Summit.

Manheim auction statistics shared at the Auto Finance Summit show electric vehicles have more than doubled their presence on the wholesale market in the past two years. Unfortunately, used EVs are also collapsing in value, according to data.

Experts from J.D. Power, Cox Automotive and Black Book predicted at the Auto Finance Summit that consumers who buy out their leases would continue to find themselves with positive equity for a while to come.

Shoppers who make their car payments to a lender using its mobile app posted customer satisfaction scores 66 points higher than customers cutting paper checks, according to J.D. Power's 2023 U.S. Consumer Financing Satisfaction Study.

Independent auto lender OneMain Holdings will begin to work with franchised dealerships as well following a pending $115 million purchase of near-prime auto lender Foursight Capital.

Bank of America has begun to offer its customers "soft" online prequalification for auto loans, which allow car shoppers to check their buying power without hurting their credit scores. The bank also has beefed up auto finance's presence on its Digital Car Shopping online retail platform.

A car dealership's mechanism for online visitors to seek preapproval for auto financing should live in multiple places on the store's website, CreditMiner says.

The two co-conspirators in the Big Red Dealerships scheme to defraud car lenders have each been sentenced in the case, one receiving nearly two years in prison and the other nearly three years.

U.S. Bank cut its auto lending work force by an undisclosed amount, but a spokesperson said Monday the layoffs would not affect dealerships' and consumers' experiences.

J.D. Power's Patrick Roosenberg called it valuable for a car dealer auto finance manager to reinforce their choice of lender to a shopper with reasons beyond the interest rate.

Vehicles with taller front ends are more likely to kill pedestrians they strike than shorter-faced counterparts, but models of medium front-end height also pose an increased threat if they feature a flatter nose, according to a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Auto dealerships should adopt a bundled or ‘robust' car protection products menu instead of the shrinking-column format common to auto retail F&I, said Erik Landrum of Conley Insurance Group.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot sentenced Bobby Mayes to 130 months in prison for defrauding car lenders at his Big Red Dealerships Group and a concurrent 65 months for tampering with his case after his conviction. He must also forfeit $1 million in profit from the scheme after already having paid $1.2 million in restitution.

"Commercial customers aren't the same as retail customers," said Ford Pro FinSimple Executive Vice President Jim Drotman, a Ford Credit executive who discussed the differences during the 2023 Auto Finance Summit.