Letter from the Auto Finance Summit Chairman

Dear Community Member,

Since 2001, the Auto Finance Summit has focused on delivering on one promise: to bring the industry together.

That is why it is particularly painful for us that the COVID-19 crisis is keeping us apart, and costing so many lives.

The truth is, we are apart just when we need to be together. The auto finance market is in the throes of historic upheaval, and we must work together to find solutions that cushion the industry from the whipsaw of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fortunately, we have found a solution. The 2020 Auto Finance Summit will be held virtually, on an events platform that will facilitate not just meaningful learning, but engagement between attendees, sponsors and exhibitors. Indeed, a virtual Auto Finance Summit will allow us to come together, and to work together.

The Auto Finance Summit Virtual Experience will take place during the dates we had planned to be in Las Vegas: October 20-22. It will include dozens of speakers and exhibitors, as well as novel features we can only present through a digital platform, such as artificial intelligence-driven matchmaking between attendees, so you can meet new industry contacts and find the right business solutions, and an interactive live “focus group” session that will provide attendees with immediate, real-time data on current market conditions.

When we look at industry statistics, we are aghast. It was simply astounding to see auto loan originations dropping more than 50% in a single month during the height of the crisis. We know well the financial pain and anguish this has caused.

That is why we are determined to do our part to improve the industry’s predicament and strategy going forward. Compared with previous years, each Auto Finance Summit session this year will have an even keener focus on practical solutions, ideas and insights that you can use immediately. Our approach is simple: any positive idea, however small, is worth pursuing under these circumstances, and we are encouraging our speakers to keep this in mind when they prepare their Auto Finance Summit presentations.

Further, we’ve done all we can to make the Auto Finance Summit as affordable as possible. Certainly, a virtual event is cost- and time-efficient, saving all of us on travel expenses. But beyond that, the list price of attendance was rolled back to 2008 levels. And we have added a new events subscription product, called Premium Plus, that cuts down the up-front cost of participation, while delivering value on an ongoing basis. Each month, Premium Plus subscribers will receive crucial exclusive video content developed by the Auto Finance News editorial team. With Premium Plus, there is no additional charge for attending any Auto Finance News event – all registration fees are rolled into the subscription price, no matter how many of our events you attend in a calendar year.

This is all part of an overarching effort to up our commitment to auto finance, an industry we have served proudly since 1996. Clearly, the challenges we face today are profound, but we will weather them and, at the 2020 Auto Finance Summit and beyond, we will join with you to improve our sector for the better. As the saying goes, we are indeed #StrongerTogether.

Sincerely yours,

JJ Hornblass
Chairman, Auto Finance News