Nicholas Financial‘s Chief Executive Doug Marohn is expecting a boost in dealer customers as a fresh partnership with DealerCenter ramps up.
The subprime lender is slated to go live on DealerCenter next week in all markets within its 15-state footprint, primarily in the Midwest and East Coast, following a Florida soft launch last Friday, Marohn told Auto Finance News. DealerCenter, a sister company to Westlake Financial Services, is a dealer management software that caters to independent auto dealers.
Of approximately 1,400 Florida dealers on the DealerCenter platform, 500 are actively signed up with Nicholas Financial. “That leaves 900 dealers who previously were not signed up with Nicholas, who are not doing business with one of our Florida-based branches,” Marohn said. “It’s really an opportunity to get in front of way more dealers, way more immediately than we could ever do organically in such a short time.”
Already, Nicholas Financial has seen a “slight lift” in applications, Marohn said, noting the Clearwater, Fla.-based lender has started approving deals through the DealerCenter portal.
“We expect to see [the partnership] be much more materially impactful going forward into the tax season, and when we launch in all our other remaining states,” Marohn said. “We will obviously see a much larger increase.”
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