During my last 29 years in auto finance, my mantra has always been the
same: Put credit-impaired customers into vehicles that 1) they can
afford; and 2) a unit that won’t break down before their first payment is
due. Want to see an example at the opposite end of these principles?
Google “Security Capital Funding” and you’ll read outlandish statements
from their customers regarding the collection of payments and units not
being roadworthy.
I truly believe that so much of the finance woes are due to greed from
corporate executives. If companies had stayed true to their original
underwriting and funding policies, there may be more finance companies
around today to service and fund credit-impaired customers.
Instead, corporations became laxed in underwriting, made exceptions to
their guidelines just to “hit the numbers,” and tried to create
scorecards that should have been used as a model and a tool, instead of for
automatic approvals. But greed took their corporations further than any
of us thought imaginable.
I believe to this day that success can come to a well-run company with
moral ethics, back-to-basics underwriting and funding, executives who
work together as a team striving for the same goal, and the true desire
to assist credit-impaired consumers.
Kathleen O’Shaughnessy is Manager of Marketing at the Colorado
Independent Automobile Dealers Association.
