Experian Automotive noticed captive finance companies increased their appetite for risk a bit during the second quarter.

According to the latest State of the Automotive Finance Market report, the year-over-year change for captives in the highest risk segment — buyers with credit scores below 600 based on the VantageScore 3.0 scale — showed a jump of 10.1 percent. The only other provider category to register an uptick at all was commercial banks, but it was just a minimal upward drift of 0.2 percent.

Going in the other direction, Experian indicated the year-over-year change in high risk originations declined most for credit unions, softening by 5.6 percent in Q2.

Looking deeper into the numbers, analysts pointed out that captives’ portfolios aren’t overflowing with non-prime paper despite the uptick in Q2. Experian indicated just 21.1 percent of their current used-vehicle financing contracts fell into the highest risk category while only 12.2 percent of their new-model deals did.

As executives might expect, the highest risk used-vehicle financing in Q2 settled mostly within the buy-here, pay-here industry (70.7 percent) and finance companies such as Credit Acceptance and Westlake Financial Services (70.6 percent).

All told, Experian determined the three highest risk segments all posted year-over-year increases in outstanding balances as of the second quarter. The metrics of open loans are as follows:

— Non-prime: 18.20 percent, up 6.35 percent

— Subprime: 16.35 percent, up 6.98 percent

— Deep subprime: 3.57 percent, up 7.42 percent