Mercedes-Benz Financial Services plans to expand the reach of its e-contracting program by yearend, after launching a limited pilot in late 2016, Vice President Geoff Robinson told Auto Finance News.
“Contracting is a complex process that must take into account state-by-state requirements, and e-contracting can be defined a little differently from company to company,” he said. “Our vision is to implement a full e-contracting solution that eliminates paper redundancies and truly improves the overall dealer and customer experience.”
The motivation is also to improve dealer relationships, since the captive is intent on “learning new ways” to bring additional products and services to support its dealer network. “While it’s still early in our testing phase, we are hopeful that both dealers and customers will respond positively to the substantially improved financing and contracting process once it is fully implemented,” he said.
Other captives with e-contracting include BMW Group Financial Services in partnership with Open Dealer Exchange LLC, and Volvo Financial Services, which introduced e-contracting for retail loans through the Dealertrack platform in July 2016.
Volvo plans to expand e-contracting for retail loan contracts to a majority of its dealers by yearend, and is working to extend the technology to its lease originations by “early 2018,” Tony Nicolosi, the captive’s president, told AFN in May.