TD Auto Finance jumped into the online origination space on Monday through a partnership with AutoGravity, but this is just the beginning of its digital efforts, Chris Howard, TD Auto Finance’s head of U.S. product, told Auto Finance News.
“As we look at the space, it’s certainly exciting to announce this partnership with AutoGravity and looking to the future I’d say we’re continuing to look at other offers and opportunities,” Howard said. “From our standpoint, this is an opportunity to add an alternative channel for credit applications that is not available to us today through this platform.”
When TD Auto was shopping digital lending partners the two goals it looked to fulfill was a dedication to the indirect model, and the ability to grow at scale within the lender’s existing origination infrastructure technology, he added.
“AutoGravity checked both of those boxes — they are focused and centered on the indirect model as the primary way of which they are originating applications and they use the same system platforms that we use for our standard course of business,” Howard said. “Our dealer partners are critical to our success and we wanted to make sure that whatever we entered into in this digital space is something that kept the dealer at the center of the transaction.”
TD Auto Finance will not expand its credit risk profile as part of this partnership, he added. Loans originated through AutoGravity will conform to the lender’s current appetite for super prime, prime, and some near-prime loans.
Other lenders on the platform include CarFinance.com (the direct lending arm of Flagship Credit Acceptance), First Investors Financial Services, Global Lending Services, Hyundai Capital America — which does business as Hyundai Motor Finance, Kia Motors Finance and Genesis Finance — Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp., U.S. Bank, VW Credit and Westlake Financial Services.
