Increased efficiency and decisioning speed are top goals for Southern Auto Finance Co. this year, according to Chief Financial Officer Gary Stein.
“Back in the day, dealers would do what we call ‘spot the cars’ — let people drive off with the cars,” Stein told AFN. “Today [dealers] won’t let [buyers] do that, and in prime lending, you can get a pretty quick response, so they want very similar to that in subprime.”
To that end, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based SAFCo is looking to match efficiencies in its decisioning system with enhancements made to its origination model in 2014. The move stems from dealer requests around speed.
“We’ve expanded our hours of operation, and we now have a crew that works on Sundays so we can give that quick turnaround time,” Stein said. “So first we put a better system in place, and then we staffed up more hours to be there when the dealer is there.”
SAFCo provides indirect loans to more than 500 dealers in 25 states, and may expand into “five or six more” states by 2017, Stein said.
Learn more about risk and compliance in auto finance May 18 and 19 at the Auto Finance Risk & Compliance Summit 2015 in San Diego. Register here.
