In the beginning, vehicles were available to purchase for cash for those with means. Then in 1919, General Motors Acceptance Corp. was created, and car purchases could be financed for the buyer. In the 1980s, consumer vehicle leasing was introduced, and although leasing took a while to catch on with the public, with a bit […] [Read More]

Committees not coming to a unanimous decision is common. But what happened at the Federal Reserve on Wednesday involving the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to leave the federal funds rate unchanged hasn’t unfolded in three decades, according to the American Financial Services Association. Fed governors Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller — the […] [Read More]

Auto auction sale conversions have become a rare thing in Canada. In its weekly Market Insights report, Canadian Black Book reported a miniscule average monitored auction sale rate of 23.5% during the week ending July 26 — by far the lowest of the year. Even more remarkable, the highest recorded rate was a mere 27%, […] [Read More]

Consumers are shelling out more on used vehicles this summer, especially if the new-to-them ride is an electric/hybrid or luxury vehicle. That’s according to the latest Carfax Used Car Index, which showed widespread year-over-year used-vehicle price increases this month. The largest was for used hybrids and EVs, whose prices in July were up close to […] [Read More]

CarGurus’ current marketing campaign is back for round 2. The digital car-shopping platform has released the second episode of “The Big Deal Show”, a three-part video series featuring entertainment and sports celebrities sharing their “big deal” moments — many of them behind the wheel of a vehicle. The new edition stars actor Josh Duhamel and actress/social media […] [Read More]

While depreciation is “roughly double” what Black Book often sees in July, analysts are also reporting that the auction conversion rate is staying near 60% so far this month. Those are the primary findings of Market Insights, which Black Book released on Tuesday. Analysts highlighted the wholesale segment sustained a 0.55% overall value decrease and […] [Read More]

AutoCanada’s transition out of the U.S. market has officially begun. The Edmonton-based dealership group announced the closing of its sale of Crystal Lake Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Crystal Lake, Ill., to an undisclosed buyer. AutoCanada said it received approximately $9.9 million (Canadian) in cash — $3.5 million for goodwill and fixed assets and $6.4 […] [Read More]

Dealerships and their network of auto-finance providers are still contending with a huge wave of negative equity connected with consumers wanting a new vehicle. According to new data from the second quarter generated by Edmunds, more than one in four new-vehicle trade-ins are underwater, a four-year high. Analysts indicated 26.6% of trade-ins toward new-car purchases […] [Read More]

FlexPath DXP co-founder and CEO Tarry Shebesta is not necessarily trying to freak out the auto-finance industry. But he did try to alert dealers, lenders and other service providers about a critical fraud pattern he spotted that’s targeting auto, powersports, and RV credit prequalification web apps. “In a recent real-world incident, hundreds of prequal submissions […] [Read More]

This week, PayNearMe, a fintech operation working to optimize the payment experience, announced a strategic integration with Emotive Software, an all-in-one platform with artificial intelligence-driven automation for dealers. According to a news release, the partnership natively integrates PayNearMe’s modern, flexible payments platform directly into Emotive’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, enabling seamless payments without the […] [Read More]