Westlake Financial Services expanded its e-contracting solution to all 50 states this week and expects the digital process will come to make up a significant portion of its originations as more dealers sign on, the company said in a press release Tuesday.
“E-contracted deals now make up about 20% of our monthly originations,” Mark Vazquez, senior vice president of sales and marketing, said in the release. “We should see this ratio increase now that we have launched the solution nationwide.”
Among participating dealers, e-contracted loans make up 60% of originations, Casey Harmon, the company’s senior vice president of corporate development, told Auto Finance News in May. The expectation is that the rate will increase to 90% among participating options, Harmon added at the time.
“Dealers have consistently embraced our e-contracting as we’ve rolled-out to each state,” Harmon said in the release. “They haven’t needed to purchase special equipment to implement the solution, because we built it to work regardless of their IT setup. That means they can e-contract with Westlake using everything from the latest tablet or phone to a basic computer and mouse configuration.”
Westlake first piloted an e-contracting solution in February 2016 through RouteOne, which was a much easier process that Westlake could just plug into. However, Westlake also has its own DealerCenter servicing platform — which accounts for 70% of the lender’s volume — and began slowly rolling out its in-house e-contracting solution on that platform at the start of the year.
The goal was to be active in all 50 states by the end of the year, and now that Westlake is ahead of that goal, its focus will shift to signing up dealers. Harmon previously told AFN that they have representatives at hand to train dealers and offer online instruction as well.
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