The auto-finance sector “has failed to innovate” in recent years, BMW Group Financial Services U.K.’s Chief Executive Mike Dennett said in a press release, and the company plans to address this issue through its new Innovation Lab.
The lab – a financial technology business incubator — will support the work of five startups, which were selected by the company today.
“Our industry is ripe for disruption and each startup we’ve selected to enter the Innovation Lab offers the potential to change how thousands of consumers gain access to and use vehicles,” Dennett said in the relase. “I’m confident that our support will help us both work towards this goal.”
The lab is set to run for 10 weeks starting on October 3 and closing with a demonstration on December 8. The five teams will have access to a range of resources provided by the company including office space at BMW Group’s headquarters in Farnborough, Hampshire, mentorships from senior leadership in the company, product testing opportunities, and access to investors.
“We know that there is a whole lot of untapped talent out there in the market,” Jonny Combe, general manager of product and channel development at the company, said in a promotional video for the lab. “And we know that if you take that brilliance, that expertise in the startup community, and match it with our global scale, reach, and our expertise too, we can create something really new and radical for the consumer. We don’t yet know what those solutions look like, but we know, having seen what’s out there in the startup community in the tech space, that there could be something that transforms or revolutionizes how our customers consume our goods and services.”
The five Innovation Lab finalists are:
- Divido: A new approach to car financing; consumers split the cost of important purchases over a long period, using their smartphone in a BMW Centre or at home.
- Wrisk: A new take on insurance, centred around people, rather than their things. Bringing motor, travel and home cover together, to offer insurance that is more intelligent and flexible while reducing costs and making life easier.
- UKVehicle.com: Using big data to identify every car available on the market, to reinvent car sales and make buying vehicles safer and hassle free.
- Drover: A car rental marketplace connecting owners and drivers of licensed cars, for use on ride-sharing platforms.
- Warwick Analytics: A new type of predictive analytics, developed at Warwick University, that aims to make BMW Group Financial Services more efficient by automating data analysis.
“Every startup that attended the pitch day presented a new idea for changing automotive finance, which meant that selecting only five to participate was a difficult challenge,” Stuart Marks, technology entrepreneur and partner of the Innovation Lab, said in the release. “However, we’re certain we’ve selected five strong companies who will benefit tremendously from being members of the Innovation Lab — it’ll be thrilling to watch them develop over the next ten weeks.”
For more auto finance insights like this, register for the upcoming Auto Finance Summit, Oct. 5-7 at Bellagio Las Vegas. Visit www.AutoFinanceSummit.com for more information.
