Auto Finance News and the Auto Finance Summit are pleased to solicit your nominations for 2020 Auto Finance Excellence Awards, which celebrate achievement in the automotive lending and leasing industry. The awards, which have been presented annually since 2005, recognize achievement by companies and/or executives in the industry. <strong>Winners: </strong> Bank of America, for excellence in community service Westlake Financial, for excellence in operations Vroom, for excellence in technology [toggle title="TRANSCRIPT"] <div class="transcript-scroll-box"> JJ Hornblass 00:00 excellence awards presentation. This is the 16th annual auto finance excellence awards and sort of proud to be presenting our 2020 winners. We give these awards to inspire any industry and I hope these, this year's awardees will do the same. First we want to congratulate last year's winners once again. They are the auto finance coalition, carvana Toyota financial services, Tricolore and john Hiatt of US Bank. Today, three awards will be presented based on the criteria we set in 2005. For the Lifetime Achievement core either lifetime achievement, charitable or community activities, innovations in product development or operations or for noteworthy deals, or joint ventures. These awards are based on nominations from you, and input from the auto finance news editorial team. And now we're going to start with our awards. We are pleased to present our first award for community service to we present this award to bank of america the nation's 11th largest auto finance company for its special financing program for wheelchair accessible vehicles. Bank of America has become the leading provider of financing for wheelchair wheelchair accessible vehicles. Over the past two years bank bfas accessible vehicle lending program has increased more than 1,000%. With more than 27 million in originations and with additional strategic relationships in process, Bank of America provides financing for both chassis and conversion packages, while providing competitive interest rates with no application fees across a national lending footprint. If a provides this accessibility financing through national chain, we'll count retailers a leading van conversion manufacturer and retailer and directly to consumers through Bank of america.com. In a financial center, in a bank financial center, or through the bank's call center. Yes, Bank of America is compensated for its lending. But clearly, the bank's financing for wheelchair accessible vehicles goes well beyond just aprs and servicing fees. This is about serving the community often overlooked. We congratulate Bank of America on this award, and welcome Fabian Tiwari of bank of america who will accept this award on behalf of the bank. Fabian. Fabien Thierry 03:22 Thank you for all of you here. And it's a it's a real pleasure to be here and accept the award on behalf of all my bank of america teammates. And just wanted to share a couple of words regarding our long lasting commitments that we we have to the communities we serve and to our clients. But something that we demonstrated throughout 2020 as our clients and community needs us more than ever. And a couple of examples of this is actually on top of what you mentioned regarding to our financing wheelchair accessible vehicle program that we started two years ago, is actually we launched and supported our clients recently with a Client Assistance Program to ease the financial hardship that is caused by this healthcare crisis. And through that program, we help defer monthly car payments, we waive late fees, and suspended repossession and legal action. And I'm pleased to report that As of mid September, we held more than 173,000 Auto clients and we participated in that program in waived over 1.4 million in late fees so proud of the work that the team is doing here and supporting our clients. We also help supporting the small businesses. We found participation and I will say leading role that we played in the paycheck protection program, we processed over 354,000 loans, which was roughly equal to half of the total loans that were provided by the top 10 banks combined. And so we delivered 25 million in total funding to our clients to our communities to hold the small businesses that needed it during that time. And finally, is that was an enterprise commitment that our CEO long shares. Earlier in June, we made a 1 billion commitment that will last over the next four years to advance the racial equality and provide economic opportunity. And that will again, just fold out and help supporting Germany surely supporting our community outreach, outreach, and in various initiatives, with with small business and entrepreneurs. And so again, it's a real pleasure, thank you so much to the team, to the auto finance team for the award, will keep on on, on you know, we'll keep up our mission and supporting the communities that we serve and our clients. So again, on behalf of Bank of America, and all my teammates, it's a real pleasure. Thank you so much. JJ Hornblass 06:05 Thank you so much, Fabian, and congratulations again, to the whole Bank of America team. And now we're pleased to present our second audit finance Excellence Award for operational excellence to westlink financial services. We present this award to Westlake for its efforts during the pandemic, to be sure, we have all faced in ordinate challenges during the coronavirus pandemic. But uniquely, Westlake use the time during the pandemic to enhance and amplify its operations in several ways. During this time, less like the 27th largest auto finance company last year, launched a commercial lending program expanded its leasing operations started a partnership with turbo pass for borrower verifications launched a partnership with lighted code to add digital transaction features for dealers and started developing its next gen originations platform. And this is all wild transitioning its 2300 members strong team to work from home what just like the like all of us, but also largely maintaining credit performance and operational integrity. The Westlake management team even jumped in to help with servicing calls. These accomplishments are the mark of an operation that did not let the pandemic the pandemic stifle its advancement. We congratulate Westlake on this award, and welcome Ian Anderson group president who will accept the award on behalf of the company. Ian Anderson 08:15 And democrat they don't think any of us really knew what to do during this time. But as a team here, we buckled down. And we were able to get everyone operational from home equipment. And at the time, we kind of really didn't know what the next day was going to be. But the great people that I wanted to work with really kept it all together. I use this time to your point to really work with our partners. And the use of technology really enhanced what we were doing, we found there was a lot of areas of improvement that we could that we could make they were done pretty easily. But I think more than anything, you know, our focus on technology with our sister company now Tom was really what helped us grow during these times and be there to support not only our dealers, but then our customers as well. And so the relationship that we have, particularly with our banks, Wells Fargo VMO and JP Morgan, operate bank and another Japanese bank, as well as a B, C and D and two Oh, really powered by time. And so like most I you know, a lot of us have been in the office by Muslim revises going above and I think we that's been great that, you know, let our employees know that. And our relationship with our partners know that you know, we are doing the best we can't operate a business for CFOs. Right bond for nine and see them Paul Kerwin when we just did a record securitization as well, and then I you know, again, like Like I said, you know, we continue to really try to find ways to partner with a lot of folks out there, whether it's our, our path through relationships led by ally, flagship bank, and others. And then just also our continued relationship with dealers back Ralph one, digital, you know, finding, trying to move on that we also with the relationships they are out with turbo pass, and CarGurus. And we just went live on through car yesterday as well. So, lots, lots of calm. But definitely the team here is definitely I think far exceeded the challenges during this time, and we've been able to operate quite well. So hats off to really the team for for doing such a great job. And JJ has always been a big supporter of us. And everything we try to do. So I, you know, our goal, read 11 billion in assets under management goals to be at 25. There by 2026. So, hopefully, we'll get there and keep innovating and trying new things. I think, you know, in this industry during this time, everyone's had to adapt pretty quickly. But I think, you know, try things and fail in time to succeed with a couple. We learn from our mistakes. So thank you very much for the award. This will very much appreciate. And I think this one means a lot because of the time that the year was. Thank you again very, very much. Thanks to everyone out there for all the support. JJ Hornblass 11:47 Thank you so much in and again, a hearty congratulations to the whole Westlake team. Our third award is for technology excellence. And that award goes to room has significantly enhanced its tech stack through the pandemic, adding new technologies to its IT infrastructure. This was all done during trying times and through its IPO by our count room added more than 40 technology elements to its digital platform since the start of the pandemic. Not all of these are significant. And while many are security related, taken in some, this effort to add technology elements represents a commitment to digital improvement. Despite the trying circumstances. It's particularly noteworthy, considering how significantly room has integrated financing into its digital car sales workflow, and how room has specifically endeavored to make its financing digital first, Much has been said about how the pandemic has thrust forward digital initiatives. And certainly there's evidence of this drive to innovate across our industry. But room is one of the key new digital channels in the auto industry. And we're pleased to recognize it's achieved its accomplishments and innovations within 2020 Auto Finance Excellence Award for technology and innovation. We invite Mark rutkoski, Chief Revenue Officer of room to Mark Roszkowski 14:02 thank you, JJ, and thank you auto finance news. On behalf of the entire room team. We're really thrilled to be recognized in the technology category. And to receive this award at groom You know, we've been transforming or we're trying to transform the automotive industry by offering a better way to sell and a better way to buy used vehicles, including, as you mentioned, JJ in digitizing the financing process. You know, it's it's 125 year old industry and highly regulated. And so, you know, it's been a long and winding journey to bring the functionality to to where we have it today and we've got a lot more to go from where we are today. But you know, we're deeply committed to creating an exceptional experience for customers. You know, we're doing this through our end to end ecommerce platform which is reinventing you know all phases of the vehicle buying and selling process. From discovery to delivery and everything in between. Now more than ever, we're proud to offer a buying and selling solution to our customers that can take advantage of that they can take advantage from the comfort of their homes. We look forward to continuing to push the automotive industry and the finance industry forward through this unprecedented time and beyond. Again, thank you so much and correct congratulations to all the other winners as well. JJ Hornblass 15:29 Mark, thank you very much, and congratulations again to the whole Froome team. So in final In conclusion, congratulations to bank of america room and Westlake. We hope these 2020 Auto Finance excellence awards will inspire the industry to continue to strive for ever greater achievement. Our next live session starts at 2:45pm on ideas for supporting dealers aiming to reignite the auto industry. We look forward to seeing you there. </div> [/toggle]
