AFS Acceptance LLC has announced that the company will now be utilizing FactorTrust’s proprietary data and custom scoring models “to better qualify customers and provide each individual with the best, most customized type of auto loan for their lifestyle,” according to press release yesterday.
“We work specifically with the nonprime demographic to provide greater access to financing options,” Scot Seagrave, president of AFS Acceptance, said in the release. “By using FactorTrust’s alternative consumer data, we can uncover new ways to help our consumers gain access to the loans they deserve.”
FactorTrust, recognized as one of the leading providers of alternative data in the auto finance industry, has “basically been a nonprime credit bureau since Day One,” Greg Rable, chairman and chief executive, told Auto Finance News in March.
Rable described “underbanked consumers” as typically having a banking relationship — usually in the form of a checking account — and typically employed, but also using alternative forms of financial services such as check-cashing. Alternative data, he said, has empowered nonprime lenders to be more aggressive in booking more accounts, whereas four or five years ago, they were “sort of flying blind.”
“Fast forward to today, there is more data than there ever has been, and I think you can underwrite consumers all the way down the credit spectrum in a much more granular and detailed way,” Rable told AFN. “And I think because of that — the metrics we’ve seen from lenders using our data — we’re seeing that they can lower first payment defaults, they can lower overall defaults, and they are able to go a lot further down the credit spectrum with more confidence than they have in the past.”
AFS Acceptance, a Plantation, Fla.-based subprime auto lender, offers lending options, underwriting and pricing to its dealer partners, and financing options to consumers. Now, with FactorTrust’s scoring platform, the company aims to “better tailor loans to each specific customer,” according to the release.
