LAS VEGAS — The leasing app Honcker has the ability to allow retail loans on its platform built and ready to go, but the company hasn’t pulled the trigger in part because Founder and Chief Executive Nathan Hecht believes leasing is the future.
The startup has grown by partnering with dealers and plugging into their systems in order to facilitate leases with the dealer’s existing lending partners. While the company could — and still might — pursue retail loans, Honcker is very focused on leases.
“Honestly, I don’t believe in retail,” Hecht said during a fireside chat at the 2017 Auto Finance Summit. “I think the evolution of cars is in leasing. For [millennials] private ownership is gone. You buy an iPhone for two years, and I look at a car the same way.”
With the advancements being made to cars through autonomous driving, electric batteries, and other technological upgrades, it may not make sense for a consumer to invest that much money on a quickly inferior asset, he said.
“Technology is updating at such a fast pace, cars are updating at such a fast pace that you’ll be stuck in an old car when there is something else amazing in the new one,” Hecht said. “It’s the era we live in and leasing is very exciting.”
However, the company may yet pursue retail installment contracts as a means to an end.
“We think of it like Netflix they started with DVD delivery because that’s where the market was at the time,” he said. “That doesn’t completely exclude us from retail, but we’re very focused on leasing.”
