Despite the obvious advantages of e-contracting, like faster credit decisions and a quicker F&I process overall, “some dealers just won’t get on board,” said Marty Crowley, chief information officer for Gateway One Lending & Finance, when speaking from a non-captive lender perspective during an Auto Finance Risk and Compliance Summit panel discussion last week.
“In a non-captive space, it’s not impossible, but challenging,” Crowley said when asked if incentives might help entice dealers. “They would only want to do it once. A fee or some type of compensation is probably not going to be enough.”
Despite the resistance, the company is still working with Dealertrack and RouteOne in preparation for a shift in the current business model, Crowley said. “We’re preparing ourselves to accept and process,” he said. “We don’t anticipate a big shift in 2015 in the non-captive space, but it is going to happen. We’re very optimistic and anxious to adopt it, the problem is [to do] the best we can do to be ready for it.”
Gateway One went live with a new loan-processing system, the Oracle Financial Services Lending and Leasing platform, in early January. The end-to-end platform encompasses originations, servicing, collections, and asset management.
