Another client-service provider relationship has evolved into one of executive teammates.
TruDecision, a fintech company providing sophisticated applications of artificial intelligence, machine learning and other quantitative tools to dealers and finance companies, has named Joel Kennedy its chief operating officer.
Monday’s development involved Kennedy as the latest addition to the TruDecision executive team. He brings more than 21 years of executive experience in auto lending operations, technology and compliance.
“Today, lenders are inundated with analytic solutions gratuitously labeled as AI. The vast majority of these solutions are built by people who have never worked in auto lending,” said Daniel Parry, chief executive officer of TruDecision. “Decision tools can have very negative consequences when designed without a contextual understanding of the business.
“Our lender customers want to know not only that we have the sophistication to develop top-tier solutions, but that we have also had to live with the results of tools we create as managers and business owners. This is why Joel Kennedy is such a powerful addition to our team,” Parry continued.
“His extensive background will help TruDecision bridge the gap between analytics and the quantifiable results lenders demand,” Parry went on to say.
Kennedy was a co-founder and original investor in Pelican Auto Finance, and as a senior executive helped to grow the company from a startup to more than $100 million in auto receivables. Formerly, he served in senior leadership positions at ACC Consumer Finance, Wells Fargo, Capital One and General Electric.
During his more than two decades in the industry, Kennedy has been integrally involved in the origination of more than $6 billion in auto receivables.
Kennedy is presently a board member of the National Automotive Finance Association. And along with being a guest contributor to Auto Fin Journal, Kennedy is also a part of the collection of experts and executives set to speak during Used Car Week 2018, which begins on Nov. 12 in Scottsdale, Ariz.
And Kennedy will come to the industry’s leading event as COO of TruDecision.
“I have worked with Daniel Parry for years as a lender peer, and also as his client,” Kennedy said. “I have seen first-hand how powerful analytics combined with a real-world understanding of auto lending can transform business operations. I am very excited to join this team and help TruDecision continue to drive bottom line results for their clients.”
A company that specializes in catering to customers who are low-to-moderate income individuals with soft credit histories now has the technological horsepower constructed by SpringboardAuto.com.
Oportun, a technology-powered community development financial institution (CDFI), announced on Tuesday it has acquired the intellectual property and financing platform of SpringboardAuto.com, a platform designed to be a mobile-friendly, auto finance solution to simplify a secure online transaction for customers, dealerships and private sellers.
“We’ve long wanted to find more ways to help the customers we serve, and this is an important step towards our goal of offering responsible and affordable auto loans,” said Raul Vazquez, chief executive officer of Oportun, which as a federally defined CDFI is a mission-driven financial institution that creates economic opportunity for individuals and small businesses, quality affordable housing and essential community services.
As part of the transaction, the SpringboardAuto.com team has joined Oportun. Jim Landy, previously chief executive officer of SpringboardAuto.com, will now serve as executive vice president and general manager for Oportun’s auto finance business unit.
“We are pleased to have Jim and the talented SBA team join Oportun,” Vazquez said. “Over time, we’ll work to integrate the SBA platform into Oportun and begin to develop the right offering for our customers.”
Landy is part of the collection of experts and executives set to appear during Used Car Week 2018, which begins Nov. 12 at the Westin Keirland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Ariz. Landy shared what it means that SpringboardAuto.com is now a part of Oportun after launching a little more than two years ago.
“SBA’s proprietary technology was developed with consumers’ needs in mind,” Landy said. “We are excited to join Oportun so we can further extend our mission to provide a transparent, personalized and empowering car buying and auto finance experience.”
Industry leaders reiterated during this summer’s Automotive Intelligence Summit the importance of collaboration as technology evolves. Another example of those kinds of partnerships recently came to fruition involving Jericho Information Technology and OneMagnify.
Dave McCune, president of Jericho Information Technology which has provided analytics, risk, contact management, compliance and complaint resolution services to indirect auto finance companies in the United States and Canada since 2007, recently announced that the company has entered into a strategic partnership with OneMagnify, a full-service marketing, technology and analytics company headquartered in Detroit.
“Through our new strategic partnership with OneMagnify, we are now deploying artificial intelligence, machine learning and traditional statistical modeling capabilities for credit decisioning and behavioral collections prioritization using traditional and alternative data for continuously evolving predictive technologies,” McCune said.
“Through this new alliance, we can deliver significant new pricing, risk management and workflow optimization benefits to our clients,” he continued. “We chose OneMagnify after an extensive search for a company that will meet all of our clients’ needs and has a proven track record of performance with a high ROI.”
With a real-time connection to the loan origination system (LOS), this new technology partnership automatically can risk rate applications for financing and simultaneously provide pricing alternatives to achieve targeted ROI.
“Our clients deploy transparent, compliant and continuously evolving models that allow front-line credit officers to configure applications to targeted ROI,” OneMagnify chief analytics officer Keith Shields said.
“This provides the opportunity for more approvals that meet the needs of the customer, dealer and finance source,” Shields continued.
Using client histories from the Jericho Knowledge Base, the new platform can deliver improved collections performance through client-specific behavioral models that optimize the collections workflow and communication channels.
“OneMagnify can document actual results with clients that have deployed their predictive analytic solutions and have shown reduced workload and staff requirements along with lower overall delinquency and loss rates,” McCune said.
“Because Jericho clients already provide the interfaces to their operational systems, delivering this new capability with OneMagnify is both cost-effective and easy to implement,” he added.
TruDecision reinforced its advisory board on Monday with a blockchain expert who hails from both the academic and business worlds.
The fintech company focused on driving efficiencies in the auto finance and dealership spaces announced the advisory board appointment of John Medellin, a former partner at IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers partner and now a research professor at Southern Methodist University.
“We are thrilled to have someone of John’s stature join our advisory board and look forward to his contributions as we scale our technology for auto lenders and dealerships,” said Daniel Parry, co-founder and chief executive officer of TruDecision.
“Dr. Medellin is not only breaking new ground in blockchain research, but brings decades of experience helping some of the largest companies in the world navigate the challenges of competing in a high-tech marketplace,” Parry continued. “His guidance will be critical in our efforts to take cutting edge science and make it practical and accessible to our customers.”
TruDecision was formed and capitalized in early 2017. The company immediately acquired Texas-based Integrated Fintech, an analytic consulting firm serving auto finance companies in the United States.
Since inception, the company has expanded to dealership and lender clients in both the United States and Canada. The company launched two flagship products: the Expert Auto Credit Score for lenders, and Dealer Edge, which can augment dealer leads with predictive models and data that improve closure rates while reducing expense.
Medellin is presently research associate professor at Southern Methodist University, and CEO/CTO of Medellin Applied Research Concepts. His current research focus is on blockchain consensus algorithms and the implications for workload performance.
Previously, Medellin spent 11 years as a GBS partner with IBM and 13 years as a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“I am truly excited to partner with the team at TruDecision. Their passion for innovation and willingness to embrace the new frontiers of research will allow them to deliver powerful solutions to their clients,” Medellin said.
Auto-finance industry participants that know the name Fiserv now have a new moniker to place in their contact listings.
On Thursday, Fiserv Lending Solutions announced the launch of its new brand identity. The joint venture between Fiserv and Warburg Pincus will now be known as Sagent Lending Technologies, a new identity that reflects the company’s values and dedication to improving the lending experience for both lenders and borrowers.
Sagent Lending Technologies stated that it can help its clients succeed by empowering them to exceed borrower expectations, increase efficiency and improve agility in an ever-changing compliance environment.
The company explained the name Sagent is a combination of two words, sage and agent. Sage refers to the three decades of experience helping lenders grow and highlights its associates’ expertise. The word agent highlights its goal to act as an agent of change and growth within the lending industry.
The company’s sage leaf icon represents growth and new opportunities and the two halves of the whole leaf symbolize the seamless joining together of the company with its clients. With its new corporate identity, Sagent Lending Technologies has introduced the tagline “grow wisely.”
“With a refreshed brand identity that highlights our differentiated approach and a dedication to our clients, we are positioned to grow and take on any challenge,” said Bret Leech, chief executive officer of Sagent Lending Technologies.
“Both lender needs and borrower expectations are evolving rapidly so we are investing in our technology to keep our clients several steps ahead of their competition. Sagent Lending Technologies delivers innovative ways to make the lending experience better for everyone, with solutions that cater to our clients’ unique business needs,” Leech continued. “Sagent is there to help our clients deliver on their brand promises.”
Before the brand launch, one of the company’s top executives also received an accolade as chief information officer Shaimaa Elk was among the inaugural group of Women in Auto Finance highlighted in Auto Fin Journal. More details about Elk and the other honorees can be found here.
Of course, auto finance companies want their customers to send payments as dictated by the agreement finalized at delivery. But the latest survey from BillingTree showed that providers realize how they can help their contract holders maintain monthly commitments is changing.
BillingTree recently announced the key findings of its 2018 Financial Services Operations and Technology survey. The results from participants at small to large credit unions, banks and auto finance companies showed continued plans to adopt mobile and automated payment technologies, including payment via mobile apps, text and Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
The report, conducted during the second quarter, found credit/debit card payment acceptance via online portal and automated forms was the most common practice, offered at more than 60 percent of institutions.
The results also noted that utilization of IVR saw a significant increase, jumping to 45 percent compared with 25 percent in the past.
Planned adoption of new technology and practices saw online portal and mobile both tied at around 35 percent each, with text alerts and payments near 20 percent.
A full 90 percent of those surveyed currently don’t use a convenience fee model to offset payment processing costs, and merely 20 percent were considering this practice in the future.
BillingTree pointed out that growing the base of members/customers and member/customer retention were the two top factors respondents cited as critical to growth and profitability for financial services organizations in 2018, consistent with prior surveys.
This year, cost reduction gave up a third-place ranking to new technologies enhancing payment collection effectiveness, followed by software integrations to enable automatic posting.
BillingTree added the rise in the rank of technology and integrations suggests that financial service organizations regard technology as a more important component in their overall business strategy than in prior years.
“This is the fourth Financial Services Industry survey commissioned by BillingTree capturing trends and revealing that most financial institutions continue to trust and adopt integrated payment technology and services,” BillingTree vice president of sales and business development Jason Hiland said.
“Mobile, text and online payments are now expected by consumers/members and offering each channel supports the Financial Institution’s top concerns, consumer/member retention and growth,” Hiland continued.
To request a complimentary copy of the 2018 Financial Services Operations and Technology survey results, go to this website.
When finance companies need to send collateral to the wholesale market, Cox Automotive data shows how much better the sales processes unfolds if the vehicle title is available.
The company research indicated vehicles holding a title are nearly two times more likely to sell off auction lots on the first pass than vehicles without titles.
To help both dealers and finance companies take advantage of this trend, Dealertrack’s Accelerated Title solution can create cost savings through faster, electronic payments to finance companies, which can enable title release to dealers as quickly as four to six days, significantly speeding the standard payoff and title release process by up to 70 percent.
In a post-sales peak automotive retail climate, in which it’s reported dealers pay approximately $32 per day on average in holding costs for vehicles that sit on lots, Dealertrack acknowledged that dealers simply cannot afford to let time kill their bottom line.
“Identifying profit opportunities for dealers and lenders through our network continues to be top-of-mind for Dealertrack,” said Todd Hutto, vice president and general manager of lender DDS/CMS Solutions at Dealertrack.
“We’ve seen titled vehicles sell at a faster clip in our current environment, creating a clear opportunity for dealers looking to move inventory faster, ultimately reducing holding costs to boost profitability," Hutto continued
Dealertrack’s finance company network now can support approximately one in every four title trade-in transactions with an outstanding installment contract in the U.S.
“Time is money for dealerships today more than ever before,” said Heather Webster, controller of Yark Automotive Group of Toledo, Ohio. “Having a vehicle’s title in hand can make all the difference as to whether I win, lose or draw on a piece of inventory.
“Having a turn-key solution that ensures speed and accuracy to secure a title puts the odds of turning a profit more squarely in my favor,” Webster continued.
For more information on Accelerated Title, visit this website.
