Auto originations are down 14% year over year for CAP COM Federal Credit Union, but the company anticipates volume to rise in 2017 as it ends a “building” year and enters a “growth” year, Director of Lending Cliff Carignan told Auto Finance News.
The drop in originations speaks to some internal changes, including temporarily eliminating pre-approval campaigns for special sales events, Carignan said.
Previously, five preferred dealers held two annual car sales at the lender’s Albany, N.Y., headquarters. “We sold 80 to even 100 cars in that one day, and we would do a pre-approval campaign ahead of that,” he said.
However, CAP COM decided to halt the car sales this year and take them directly to the dealers — starting spring 2017 — in an effort to involve more of its dealer network.
“We didn’t generate the kind of swell of demand [this year] that we have in the past,” he said, “but we really look to focus on a different direction in 2017, and rebuild in the meantime.”
Additionally, the credit union has two new technology partnerships that are anticipated to spur loan volume in 2017, Carignan said. CAP COM partnered with GrooveCar Inc. in late October, to use the company’s online auto-buying platform, and its partnership with CUneXus will go live in the first quarter — which will provide members with access to pre-approved loans across multiple product lines.
GrooveCar is working with CAP COM to customize all aspects of the car-buying program, including combining the members’ desire for a new or pre-owned vehicle and matching it with available local inventory, according to a company press release.
“Over the years, we’ve established great partnerships with local dealers,” Carignan said in the release. “GrooveCar allows us to leverage those relationships for our members in a way that is more convenient. They can shop multiple dealers from the comfort of home to find the right vehicle and still take advantage of preferred pricing as well as the guidance of CAP COM’s car-buying experts.”