Yamaha Motor Finance, since launching its in-house credit card program in Oct. 2016, has attracted 75,000 card-holder accounts, which is more than what was originally predicted, Lyndon Elam, vice president of retail sales, marketing and operations told Powersports Finance.
“Our results have been somewhat better than our initial expectations…a general purpose credit card (e.g., Visa or Mastercard network) is currently outside our focus; however, it is something we may consider in the future based on customer and dealer feedback,” Elam said.
Yamaha initially launched its credit card program with a Capital One Financial Corp. co-branded card in November 2016, then partnered with WebBank on an in-house card when Capital One exited the market, Jeff Young, president of Yamaha Motor Finance, previously told PSF. That program had approximately 120,000 active cardholder accounts at the time, Elam said, and that the 75,000 accounts now active through WebBank were customers who re-opened accounts after they were closed by Capital One.
The other 45,000 accounts remain closed, but Yamaha continues to service those accounts as the existing balance remained after closure, Elam said.
Elam could neither disclose how often customers used the card to facilitate all or part of a powersport purchase, nor how many units were sold in 2017 using the card to facilitate all or part of a unit purchase.
In coordination with WebBank, Yamaha Financial Services manages all marketing and servicing activities associated with the program and that WebBank funds all of the extensions of credit made with the Yamaha Card. After an initial holding period, WebBank sells the receivables to Yamaha.
