Speed Leasing is piloting first-time buyer and credit-builder programs, with a target rollout in the first quarter of 2020, Chief Sales Officer Frank Dionisi told Powersports Finance.
Dania Beach, Fla.-based Speed Leasing has been testing the programs this quarter with a small number of dealers. The pilot — which has been “working out pretty well,” Dionisi said — targets consumers who lack extensive credit histories, such as recent graduates, or those who are looking to boost their credit scores.
“We’re trying to be responsibly aggressive,” Dionisi explained. “Not necessarily in powersports, but lenders sometimes overburden people with borrowing power that they really can’t take. We’re trying to give people who are new to high-credit items like motorcycles an opportunity to get established or to reestablish if they’ve been through some bad times.”
With two years of performance data under its belt, Speed Leasing can better understand what programs have worked in the past, allowing the company to see trends and better predict consumer behavior. “There are two ways to be a 500 FICO score,” Dionisi said. “You can be a 500 score on your way to 600, or you can be a 500 on your way to 400. We’re trying to identify the trends with our new buyers and our ‘rebuilding’ buyers to catch them when they are on the upswing rather than the downswing.”
Founded in 2017, Speed Leasing works with about 500 dealers in 22 states.
