The year began with lease credit approvals down, but levels are rising slowly from December lows.

That's according to trends Swapalease.com spotted on its own site, as the company said car lease credit approvals started the year off lower than trends showed during the last two quarters of 2015.

But January’s performance definitely showed an improvement from the December decline.

According to the site, January auto lease credit approvals finished the month at 63.6 percent, up from the December rate of 54.5 percent that caused leasing approvals to end the year on a “down note.”

"While lease approvals have been slightly down over the last few months, it's difficult to say this is any meaningful trend at this point, especially given the sales success seen in showrooms currently," said Scot Hall, executive vice president at Swapalease. "The numbers do bear watching more closely, though, as several more months of this level of activity could indicate a softening of the overall credit environment for consumers and car shoppers."

That said, sales in the overall auto industry are up near record levels, but the year-over-year surge has seemed to “begun to cool off,” according to Swapalease.

The site’s analysts explained the vehicle lease credit approvals rating “mirrors other closely watched economic indicators which have been mixed lately.”

Also, keep in mind, the lease credit approvals rating moved around a bit during the first and second quarter of 2015, as well, before picking up toward the latter half of the year.