Ally Financial Inc. is keeping its eye on the used-car market as it enters growth mode, Ally Auto President Tim Russi said.
“Historically, if you back up, we did very little used [financing],” he said during a fireside chat at AFS. “We looked at our opportunities, and we wanted to expand our dealer base beyond the dealer channel we had – which was practically [all] GM, and we added the Chrysler channel.”
Although Ally had “great relationships” with its dealer partners, the company was not financing a high volume of used vehicles, Russi said, which he described as “a very valuable offering to dealers.”
The company originated $9.4 billion in auto loans in the second quarter, of which 43% were for used vehicles, up from 37% at the same time a year prior.
The market is “fragmented enough” that companies with broad product offerings across the full spectrum “can find places to deploy the capital you have available,” Russi said. “We’re a large player, and even for us, there’s plenty of opportunity out there. I look at our flow of applications and how much we actually capture of that [used volume] on our books — I could see us focus on improvement over time.”
