Last week, Affinity Federal Credit Union announced a strategic partnership with Point Predictive This collaboration aims to bolster efforts by the member-based, federally insured, full-service financial institution to combat the increasing challenges of identity, income, and employment fraud while helping Affinity’s members get automotive financing easier and faster. Affinity was recently recognized on the Forbes […] [Read More]

Auto finance originations are down, personal loan balances sit at a record high, and consumers of all credit tiers are antsy for an interest-rate reprieve from the Federal Reserve. Those findings are the primary highlights of Q2 2024 Quarterly Credit Industry Insights Report (CIIR) from TransUnion. Beginning with the auto portion of the report that […] [Read More]

Trust Automotive Holdings partner and CEO Edgar Castellanos and Open Road Capital have acquired two dealerships in Costa Mesa, Calif., from Z Nafe, according to Dave Cantin Group, which advised both parties in the transaction. Dave Cantin, CEO of Dave Cantin Group, said the acquisition of the dealerships by Castellanos and Open Road Capital marks […] [Read More]

Two of the growing factors impacting electric vehicles are charging them and securing affordable insurance, and three research projects shed more light on those elements of EV ownership and how consumers are adjusting. First, Mercury Insurance compiled a list of the most affordable new EVs to insure, but a Tesla is not mentioned among the […] [Read More]

Another alliance involving 700Credit surfaced this week to help dealerships digitize their car sales, enabling their teams to retail and finance cars more efficiently. The latest move by the provider of credit reports, compliance solutions, soft pull, identity verification and fraud detection platforms is with Fuse Desking, an end-to-end solution for variable ops management and […] [Read More]

Subprime auto finance companies often tout that an ancillary benefit of providing financing to consumers with soft credit histories is it can be a path to resuscitating an individual’s credit profile through on-time payments. This week, the Federal Trade Commission finalized a lawsuit against a “sprawling” credit-repair operation that was doing illegal things, including an […] [Read More]

Despite the negative impact of the CDK outage in the second quarter, lead generator TrueCar narrowed its losses and launched TrueCar+, a digital marketplace allowing consumers to buy used, certified pre-owned, or new cars entirely online. “We are becoming a better version of TrueCar that more effectively addresses the evolving needs of consumers, dealers and […] [Read More]

Used-vehicle sales at AutoNation in June “were flat or accelerating” and the retailer’s business lines in general were “moving positively,” said Mike Manley, AutoNation’s CEO. Then came June 19 and a cyber-attack against dealership management software provider, CDK Global. The negative impact on virtually every business segment at AutoNation, including its used vehicle operations, was swift. The main functionality of CDK’s system was ... [Read More]

CarShop is officially gone in the United Kingdom. Its status in the U.S., on the other hand, seems much more solid. Last week in Penske Automotive Group’s earnings call for the second quarter of 2024, chief operating officer for international operations Randall Seymore confirmed that CarShop — Penske’s brand for its used-car stores — has been ... [Read More]

Driven by continued strength in commercial consignment, auction sales are up double-digit percentages so far this year, including July volumes that climbed more than 24% from a year ago. July also marked a milestone for electric vehicles: it was the first time there were more than 10,000 auction sales of EVs. All this according to […] [Read More]