At last week’s Auto Finance Summit, I argued that automotive lending and leasing was in prime position for growth not just in 2011, but over the next five years. I stand by that assessment, and am buoyed by yet another data marker.
We tracked Google’s automotive financing index, which tracks the search activity for lending terms like “loan, lease, car loan, car calculator.” On a year-over-year basis, the index has been negative since the start of 2009. Still today, the YOY search velocity for auto finance was down 5.79% on Oct. 20. But, interestingly, other Google search indexes related to lending have gone positive on a year-over-year basis. For example, the credit and lending index, which monitors search terms such as “credit, credit card, chase, loans,” turned positive in mid-September. And the personal finance index, which marks search terms like “bank, bank of america, wells fargo,” has been out of negative territory since last April.
To me, this means automotive finance still has yet to fully reverse course and return to its true growth rate, especially considering that car sales are up year-over-year. Hold on to your hats, folks. The fun is just starting.
