Security National Automotive Acceptance Co. began rolling out a new origination system to dealers last month in an effort to further hasten the funding process and provide more flexibility to deals, President and Chief Executive Grant Skeens told Auto Finance News.
“We’re converting from an old home-grown system that we have outgrown, and we’re enhancing it and upgrading it to a part-vendor solution,” he said. “We have highly customized it to preserve the things that matter for our dealers: the experience, the ease of use, the e-contracting capability. We think it gives us a competitive advantage, makes us even faster on our feet, quicker with product changes, and quicker to respond to pricing opportunities in the marketplace.”
SNAAC worked with Defi Solutions to develop the system throughout 2017 and allows for integrations with Dealertrack and RouteOne.
“[In 2017] we saw better portfolio performance year over year, and we saw declining delinquencies and declining loss rates,” Skeens said, noting that the company is private and does not disclose specific figures. “We’re bullish on being able to profitably grow Security National going forward.”
The company’s performance seems to buck the 2017 trends of rising delinquencies and slowing volume gains. Skeens attributes the company’s gains to the effort and resources it puts behind the servicing team and the data it collects.
SNAAC is also one of the first companies to form a compliance program that allows military servicemembers to purchase GAP policies at the dealership under newly revised rules from the Department of Defense. The rule states that servicemembers who purchase GAP are subject to the Military Lending Act, where there had previously been an exception for auto lending.
The company has been lending exclusively to military members for the past 32 years, so it was important for the company to be nimble and form a program fast, Skeens said.
“From a systems perspective we’re highly efficient at making necessary changes quickly and adapting quickly to any changes that come down the pike,” he said. “The fact that [military lending] is our business means we’re going to do the things necessary to be compliant. Hopefully, we’ve put some dealers minds at ease.”
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