When asked which banking product should “die,” during a CBA Live debate titled Banking: Live and Let Die, Camden Fine, president and chief executive of Independent Community Bankers of America, answered “long-term, fixed rate loans,” adding that 60-month auto loans are too long.
Although longer term auto loans won’t disappear overnight, Fine told Auto Finance News that he believes they are unnecessary in today’s credit environment, and that most consumers don’t hold onto their vehicles for the length of the loan. As for 72- and 84-month auto loans, Fine was categorical: “No, that’s just getting a bit too out of hand.”
Fine, who is an advocate for community banks and former owner of Mainstreet Bank of Ashland, Mo., a $50-million-asset community bank, also got in a jab at larger banks during the debate when he told the audience that small banks can either succeed or fail, but “we don’t get bailed out.”
