Uncertainty has become a fixture in today’s auto lending market, fueled by current trade tariffs and other macroeconomic disruptions. Amid these industry shifts, U.S. auto sales  rose nearly 6% as of Q3 2025, according to Reuters, as consumers continue to buy cars at a steady pace.

As economic conditions remain unsettled, auto lenders must be able to adjust their decisioning strategies in real-time. Market conditions will change, requiring lenders to respond quickly to shifting consumer demand, pressures and other financial trends as they unfold.

Predicting these shifts is difficult. Regardless of the economic situation, auto lenders can remain agile by adopting data-driven strategies to approve more qualified borrowers seeking vehicles and effectively manage risk. According to Kelley Blue Book, the average new vehicle price now exceeds $50,000. This, combined with sustained high interest rates, creates a major challenge for lenders when assessing a consumer’s true long-term ability to pay.

To keep from being blindsided by sudden market shifts and making costly lending mistakes, auto finance providers may consider changing their process. By integrating additional data into their risk assessments, lenders can be better prepared to handle market fluctuations and sudden economic changes more effectively.

More data means more informed decisions

While traditional credit scores remain the gold standard for determining a borrower’s credit history and financial reliability, alternative data allows lenders to layer insights that go beyond the traditional credit score to evaluate creditworthiness. Traditional credit reports shed light on key factors including credit card usage, loan balances and repayment history. Augmenting this with alternative data, such as utility and telecom payment history, rental data, and verified employment or income records, offers a broad view of consumer behavior. This also helps capture consumers who responsibly manage finances yet fall outside of conventional credit parameters.

By incorporating this data, lenders can uncover deeper insights into financial behaviors and enable potential buyers to access favorable auto financing options. In addition to saying “yes” to a larger pool of borrowers, alternative data also enables lenders to responsibly grow their portfolios.

Optimizing decision-making for auto

Auto lenders can optimize their decision-making by gaining instant access to data from multiple sources and leveraging built-in, automated decisioning platforms.

In the past, accessing and integrating third-party data with a lender’s internal systems was a complex, time-consuming process that spanned months and involved multiple providers. These roadblocks often slowed decisioning and reduced responsiveness to market changes.

Rather than spending months trying to resolve analytic inefficiency and delays, auto lenders can implement cloud-based solutions to gain consolidated and direct access to multi-source data. Auto-specific data sets can further refine decisioning by identifying prior vehicle ownership history, payment performance and dealership relationships. Using these insights in conjunction with predictive modeling enables lenders to tailor offers, prescreen applicants and approve more borrowers.

Lenders today are improving their agility and deploying analytic models with built-in decisioning platforms. Building and launching these models for prescreening, credit risk or collections can be a lengthy process, especially when lenders must build and implement them internally.

To eliminate these inefficiencies, lenders can adopt third-party models that create a single analytic environment by integrating with their selected data and automating the decisioning process. This allows lenders to analyze their credit decisions and outcomes in real-time, ultimately approving buyers at any time while optimizing their loan portfolio.

In today’s market, agility and access to refined, data-driven insights are competitive necessities. Auto lenders who struggle to make informed credit risk decisions may find themselves lagging behind their competition as they miss out on potential opportunities.

Will Holleman is the sales leader of the Equifax Verification Services Auto team. Will serves a wide variety of clientele, ranging from large banks and credit unions, to buy-here, pay-here clients and subprime auto lenders. Prior to joining Equifax, Will worked in dealerships and rental agencies, which provided him with an understanding of the challenges and nuances of the auto industry.