In an effort to touch on an array of topics within the used-vehicle industry, Nick recently connected with AGORA founder and chief executive officer Steve Burke for a podcast about how the market for bulk portfolio purchases is behaving.
With significant experience in the space, Burke discussed how technology is impacting how dealerships and finance companies buy and sell paper.
The full discussion can be found below.
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For the second time this month, PassTime finalized another relationship to help buy-here, pay-here dealerships and finance companies that participate in the subprime space.
After solidifying a relationship with AFS Dealers, the automotive GPS solutions provider recently announced it has completed an integration with Solutions by Text (SBT), a division of Marketing Response Solutions, focused on streamlining client communication and leveraging the power of SMS to create advanced business solutions in the mobile space.
Through the software integration, the companies highlighted mutual customers of PassTime and SBT will have the ability to automatically send consumers text message communications and reminders relating to their vehicle payment and PassTime device. The addition of text message communication to the payment reminders of the PassTime device is designed to make it easier for dealers and finance companies to stay in touch with their consumer customers.
“The integration with SBT is something a lot of customers in the industry are already talking about,” PassTime president and chief operating officer Chris Macheca said.
“We are most excited about providing our customers even more tools to help their business — and that is exactly what the integration with Solutions by Text gives them,” Macheca continued.
Dealers and finance company customers use PassTime’s GPS solutions to connect vehicles and protect their assets. For the auto finance industry, PassTime GPS solutions can help to facilitate communication between consumers and creditors, helping keep consumers on track with their payments with payment reminders.
PassTime has been in business for more than 25 years, trying to providing high-quality and reliable products to the vehicle financing industry along with 24/7 live customer care for its customers and consumers.
Solutions by Text is a division of Marketing Response Solutions, a full-service consulting firm which has been serving the business community since 1995. Solutions by Text leverages the power of SMS for business solutions and has a full suite of services to compliment nearly any business model, from payment reminders to completing a transaction.
From answering billing questions, offering loyalty discounts, or promoting products and services, with SBT, customer communication happens in real time, according to the company.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about creating meaningful relationships. Our partnership with PassTime GPS allows us to provide useful tools to better the user experience,” Solutions by Text chief executive officer Danny Cantrell said.
“PassTime GPS is a top tier organization and we are proud to be a part of the team,” Cantrell went on to say.
The companies mentioned that the integration is now commercially available.
For more information, contact PassTime at (877) 727-7846 or info@passtimegps.com.
Make it five integrations with dealership management systems for AGORA.
Within a week of announcing a relationship with Auto Master Systems, AGORA finalized its relationships with AutoManager, a dealer software development company located in southern California that offers three principal products: DeskManager, WebManager and Automotive CRM.
AGORA, the Texas-based provider of technology solutions for the financial services industry, now is integrated with Auto Master Systems and AutoManager along with Frazer, Wayne Reaves and DealerCenter.
“The AutoManager integration continues to expand AGORA’s ability to help buy-here, pay-here dealers sell portfolios faster, more profitably and securely to our nationwide network of banks, finance companies, and credit unions on our platform,” AGORA founder and chief executive officer Steve Burke said.
“Protecting our dealers from exposing loan data when they make their portfolios available for sale and giving dealers more liquidity is the mission of AGORA,” Burke continued.
“DeskManager is an exceptional dealer management system, and we are excited to have them as one of our key integration partners, who enable dealers to seamlessly and securely offer their loans for sale, avoiding unsafe transmission of private customer data through emails and data files,” Burke went on to say.
For more than 30 years, AutoManager stated that it has been able to leverage their knowledge, experience and expertise to increase sales and productivity for their dealers. The integration with AGORA will give DeskManager’s BHPH dealerships an option to have their loan information concurrently available on AGORA, where they can securely select loan pools for bidding or financing.
“Adding AGORA as a valued integration partner allows us to continue our commitment of enhancing the value, innovation, and customer service we provide our dealers,” AutoManager president and chief executive officer Kami Tafreshi said.
“Now our buy-here, pay-here DeskManager dealers can increase their profitability and success by utilizing this fast and secure dynamic loan marketplace,” Tafreshi went on to say.
Now that DeskManager is the fifth AGORA API integration with the leading DMS providers. AGORA management expects that in the next few months AGORA will be fully integrated with DMS providers covering more than 90 percent of the dealerships nationwide.
This month, AGORA also hit a new milestone of more than $3 billion in principal balance placed on its platform since the launch in April 2017.
A technology expert who has held top roles at Santander Consumer USA and Capital One now is a part of Tricolor, one of the largest used-vehicle retailers focusing on the sale and financing of vehicles to Hispanic consumers,
This week, Tricolor announced that it has appointed industry veteran Don Goin as its chief technology officer. Goin will lead Tricolor’s digital transformation as it continues to scale and expand its direct-to-consumer financing model and explore new applications.
“Don has continually distinguished himself as an innovator and leader in our industry, and I am thrilled to welcome him to the team,” Tricolor chief executive officer Daniel Chu said. “He will be instrumental in advancing our digital strategy across all of our core processes and enhancing the scalability of our platform.”
During a 25-year career in technology, Goin served as the chief information officer at Santander Consumer USA for more than 12 years, leading all technology strategy and execution for one of the fastest growing finance companies in the subprime space.
As chief information officer at Capital One Auto Finance, Goin co-led the creation of an innovation center while integrating technology to accelerate market capabilities and transform solution delivery.
Tricolor has continued to expand its proven model for underwriting thin and no-file Hispanics in innovative ways. The company has partnered with artificial intelligence providers to advance its underwriting capabilities while exploring new applications for its ability to efficiently extend affordable loans to customers.
Goin acknowledged his new role, saying, “Tricolor has created a truly distinct value proposition. I look forward to creating a complete and thoroughly modern digital customer journey that will transform our market.”
Since its founding in 2007, Tricolor highlighted that it empowers its customers by providing access to affordable financing on high quality, certified vehicles in order to enhance the quality of their lives and ultimately help them to build a better future. On a combined basis, Tricolor and its sister brand Ganas have served more than 45,000 customers and disbursed nearly $900 million in auto financing by using its proprietary model to segment risk.
For more information about Tricolor and Ganas, visit tricolor.com and ganas.com.
Buy-here, pay-here dealers and finance companies that use GPS solutions from PassTime now have access to a new gateway to leverage the company’s platform and tools.
PassTime recently launched what’s being dubbed the InTouch Summit, an all-new device management portal for its InTouch product line. InTouch is a GPS solution connecting vehicles for dealers and consumers.
Dealers can use InTouch to monitor inventory on their lot, keep track of test drives, and as a theft recovery tool. Consumers who purchase InTouch from an authorized dealer take advantage of InTouch’s connected car features for vehicle monitoring and theft recovery.
InTouch Summit — the customer portal where dealers can manage their InTouch devices — features a completely redesigned interface, faster actionable items, enhanced data analytics and a better overall user experience.
“InTouch Summit is a ground-up design that has been built completely with our InTouch customers in mind. The new portal provides a single pane of glass experience where information pertaining to all of their assets is one click away,” said Jerry Morgan, PassTime’s executive vice president of development.
Along with the companion suite of InTouch mobile apps, InTouch Summit can give customers a great experience when managing their InTouch connected vehicles.
InTouch Summit is currently available to select customers.
Clients can contact PassTime for a demonstration by calling (877) 727-7846 or sending a message to info@passtimegps.com.
Frazer Computing is making sure its dealer management system can help buy-here, pay-here dealerships with two critical functions — potentially selling parts of their portfolio as well as texting with their customers.
Most recently, AGORA, a Texas-based provider of technology solutions for the financial services industry, on Monday finalized an integration functionality relationship with Frazer.
Through the integration with AGORA, dealerships on Frazer can have their loan information concurrently available on AGORA where they can securely select loan pools forbidding or financing from more than 60 finance companies that acquire loan pools or finance them on the AGORA platform.
The entire placement, bidding, and acquisition of loan pools are completed inside the AGORA platform, without exposing private customer data, transaction activity, and collection notes to outside parties.
AGORA founder and chief executive officer Steve Burke said, “By establishing this first of many DMS integrations, dealers can seamlessly and securely make their portfolios available for sale or financing — avoiding unsafe emails and data files.
“Data files will go the way of the dinosaur, Blockbuster, BlackBerry and any other companies that failed to recognize the need for innovation. Data files have been eliminated by the Frazer integration, and dealers now have more liquidity than ever before,” Burke continued.
Since its launch in April of last year, AGORA’s flagship loan exchange platform has rapidly evolved in the secondary market for auto loans, allowing buyers and sellers to publish and exchange loan data directly in an efficient and secure environment without the need for intermediaries or brokers.
“We are always working to deliver increased value to our customers. We believe this could be one of the most popular integrations we have ever added for our buy-here, pay-here customers,” said Michael Frazer, president of Frazer.
Burke shared that AGORA is honored to have Frazer as its first integration, and the AGORA development team is putting the finishing touches on integrations with other leading DMS providers.
Management expects that in the next few weeks AGORA will be fully integrated with DMS providers covering more than 75 percent of the dealerships nationwide.
Burke added, “Soon all dealers will be asking 'Does my DMS do this?’”
AGORA was created in response to the many friction points and inefficiencies that exist in the manner that auto loan portfolios currently trade – namely poor and inconsistent data, lack of transparency from the brokers that previously dominated the market and heightened regulatory concerns over unsecured transmission of personal consumer data.
“Our integration partnership between Frazer and AGORA helps create a seamless suite of products and services to dealers from loan origination through loans sales — creating speed, efficiency, security and liquidity benefiting the entire market,” Burke said.
Visit www.agoradata.com for more information.
And Frazer recently integrated with another BHPH dealership service provider.
Textmaxx Pro, an award-winning business texting solution that is part of the Leedom Group of companies recently announced it has completed a full integration with Frazer Computing.
“We are extremely excited about our full integration with the Frazer DMS platform. This partnership will bring a best-in-class solution to their dealers and provide robust capability to harness SMS messaging across all phases of operation including sales, service and collections,” said Chris Leedom, founder and chief executive officer of Textmaxx Pro. “We are pleased to serve the Frazer universe of dealers with another incredible product that will help them succeed.”
Textmaxx Pro can enable a broad menu of SMS messaging options including broadcast texts, text communication with a single customer, and a broad menu of predesigned reminders and messages.
Frazer dealers will even be able to text enable their existing dealership landline as a result of this integration.
“We are very excited about this partnership,” Michael Frazer said. “We have really beefed up the texting capabilities within Frazer as part of this new integration. And we know that whenever Frazer gets together with a Chris Leedom company it means great things for our customers.”
Dealers can learn more about the integration by contacting Dave Leedom at Textmaxx Pro by texting keyword “FRAZER” to 95000 or by visiting http://textmaxxpro.com.
