NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The auto finance industry has come far in digitization, but there is still a long way to go both in employee- and customer-facing systems. Using technology to improve internal staff efficiency and external consumer experience were key themes for experts in a panel on digital auto finance at the 2024 Auto Finance Summit East conference in early May. Digitization is becoming more common throughout the auto finance world — from machine learning to electronic signatures — and supporters point out the potential for greater effectiveness and accuracy.”There is still so much left to do,” said Matt Dundas, vice president of finance at Carvana. “We are trying to get our arms around all the opportunity that is in front of us.” Carvana has the advantage of a wholly digital foundation, but as the company has grown that has introduced challenges, Dundas said. More inventory and more customers have required hardware upgrades to process and serve more transactions online, he said. As well, “there are elements of salesmanship that are missing when you are 100 percent digital,” Dundas said. “I view that as an opportunity here for us to really rethink some of the new AI technologies out there that will allow us to tackle that problem.” Customer experience becomes especially important in the current affordability environment, Dundas said. Interest rates are high, and in the fourth quarter of 2023, consumers paid $18 more a month for a loan than they did at the end of 2022, with the average loan payment reaching $738. Consumer affordability challenges have “driven a lot of the investments around a refactored search process and changing how we merchandise vehicles,” he said. “Really helping customers find vehicles that work for them.” For Chitra Herle, chief information officer of GM Financial, efficiency is essential and there are numerous areas where the company is looking to use technology to work smarter, she said. For example, using computer models to better process documents, summarize notes and manage to-do lists. “Technology is augmenting the tasks that people do. It is not taking them away; it is an enabler and an efficiency play,” she said. “It also opens up the time and opportunity for our resources to be more creative, to think about the future and come up with more elegant, efficient solutions to serve our customers.” Technology also is critical to maintaining lender and dealership relationships and reducing friction, said Pat Rinaldo, chief information officer of auto F&I at Ally Financial. “We have to have the best experiences,” he said. “We have to be able to integrate in the way that [dealerships] need us to integrate.” Companies in the auto finance market need to make sure that technology is in line with a business’ goals and people’s needs, said Andrew Flegg, chief technology officer of finance software company Alfa.They should ask: “How is it going to help that person? And how is it going to help us be more efficient?” he said. One area where technology can be helpful is collaboration, Flegg said. Especially in a global operation, digital processes can greatly improve a company’s ability to share knowledge and experiences across its workforce. /cdn-cgi/scripts/5c5dd728/cloudflare-static/email-decode.min.js
Source: autonews.com