Chase Auto Finance originated $6.3 billion of auto loans last quarter, up 12.5% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, its auto portfolio grew 10.4% during the same period, to $46.9 billion.
Parent company JPMorgan Chase attributed the increases to “marketshare gains in prime segments and new manufacturing relationships.”
Last week, Chase announced that it had signed a multi-year private-label agreement with Mazda North American Operations, creating a captive called Mazda Capital Services. The new brand is slated to be rolled out later this year.
JPMorgan Chase noted other improvements in its auto portfolio last quarter. For one thing, its net chargeoff rate fell nearly half, to 0.88% from 1.66% in 1Q09. The company also noted “an increase in net interest income, reflecting the impact of higher auto loan balances and wider auto loan spreads.”
Overall, JPMorgan Chase earned $3.3 billion for the quarter, up 57.1% from $2.1 billion in the first quarter of 2009. On a per-share basis, earnings climbed to $0.74 from $0.40.
Click here for JPMorgan Chase’s 1Q10 investor presentation.
Click here for the 1Q10 financial supplement.
Bobby,
First, you are to be commended for stabilizing Navigator’s credit performance! That was no easy feat!
The question I was trying to get at was whether auto loan performance is a fair barometer for overall credit performance — as is increasingly being claimed — or whether the improvements in auto portfolio performance are attributable to the fine efforts put in by folks like you, your team, and others? Put another way, are we seeing an overall reversal of credit performance as expressed by autos stabilizing? My fear is that the short-term answer is no — and, therefore, these pronouncements that stabilizing auto performance “support our view that the pace of deterioration in credit quality is decelerating” are less than accurate.
JJ