Volkswagen’s Originations Decline Amid Mobility Focus

VW Financial Services’ North American originations were down 11.8% for the nine-month period through September, according to the company’s third-quarter earnings.

North American originations totaled 647,000 contracts through September, down from 734,000 during the same period the year prior.

The pullback in originations was mostly concentrated in leasing, where the company’s total U.S. lease outstandings fell 5.5% to 1.7 million contracts. Meanwhile, retail loans picked up the slack to bring the company’s total U.S. outstandings flat year over year at 2.7 million.

Globally, the company grew its outstanding by 5.8% to 18.1 million contracts outstanding.

At the start of this year, Volkswagen started to combine Porsche Financial results with the broader VW Financial Services results, but previous-year numbers have not been adjusted. Despite that accounting change, the company still experienced declines.

Additionally, the OEM has moved all its mobility services and fleet management operations under VW Financial Services’ control, the company said in its earnings report.

“Volkswagen Financial Services has established a new, independent company in Luxembourg that will develop, coordinate, and expand the global payment activities of Volkswagen Financial Services in order to build up and extend its services — the payment of parking tickets, car-sharing, electricity, fuel charges, and road tolls — and allow global processing,” according to the report. “In addition, Volkswagen Financial Services has acquired the Munich-based startup ContoWorks GmbH, which provides an integrated platform for payment services.”