Podcast: A look back at top automotive trends in 2024 

Amanda Harris 0:19 Hello everyone and welcome to the road map from auto Finance News. Since 1996, the nation’s leading newsletter on automotive lending and leasing. It’s Monday, January 6th, and I’m Amanda Harris, joined by James Van Bramer and Ashley Savage. This is our weekly wrap on what happened in auto finance for the week ending January 3rd, 2025. We’re happy to kick off with 2025 with a quick look at the big stories and trends in 2024. So I’ll turn it over to James and Ashley, where capitalist out to our readers and to them in the past year and share some initial thought. On the year ahead, James wanna kick us off? James Van Bramer 0:51
Ours, it was another busy year in both tech and compliance in 2024 that will perhaps continue in 2025.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Some some key compliance stories last year included the FT CS crackdown on payment packing, in other words. What they see as junk fees or what they consider to be excessive aftermark aftermarket product charges. We saw this sort of apex in a sense when the Commission took action against several dealerships under the Osbury automotive wing.
The case is still pending at Osbor denies any wrongdoing in case. We also saw what might have been the biggest compliance story, especially in viewers minds. Which, sorry in readers minds, which was. TD Bank being being fined $3.1 billion and hit with the USA Asset cap of $434 billion for their total US assets, which had led the bank to deciding to pull back on commercial auto lending and other what they considered less quote less profitable portfolios and in unrelated case they were also fined by the C. For 26,000,000 on September 12, being accused of supplying inaccurate customer information to consumer reporting agencies. On the tech side. There was also loads of imported stories, mostly geared around new innovations, mostly around data and artificial intelligence. I’ll start with Tenet. Who? They just revamped their refi application system as they are expected to see an increase in refi demand. That is a potential teaser for a story that I’m working on later in the week, so stay tuned on refi. But for tenant they they saw a 900% year over year increase in. Applications for refi. This was in October. And as such, they decided to revamp their program, in which they speed up the process, being able to fund deals with the NH 24 hours. Another big tech story from 2024 was Ford Credit deciding to launch platform a data-driven platform for insights in 2025.That’s this year, Ford Credit decided to make the platform, which will leverage consumer data to personalize communication. The system will help decive identify the best times and methods to contact the customers. So for example, if a customer prefers to be texted versus called or called versus texted, forward would then use the preferred method of communication to contact that customer, which enhances the human experience. Another major story that happened in 2024 happened in June, and that was that was when. A cyber attack on software providers. Cdk. Global knocked dealership management services offline for more than 15,000 dealerships across the country. As a result, dealers had to quickly find solutions on how to finance deals and workarounds of how to finance deals for about two weeks. The disruption impacted sales volume for the quarter, but there was ended up pretty much being very little effect as everything was pretty much counted later on or just continue or just got finance that over date. So that’s it for me, Ashley.
You know what set out in the powersports market?
Ashley Savage 4:04 Yeah. Thanks, James. You know, you highlighted the tech topics on the auto side in 2024, which we also saw in the powersports market and something we definitely highlighted in our coverage of the top five powersports stories of the year. To start, we saw.
Harley-Davidson Financial Services decision to include CPO and used units in its Flex financing program in 2025. The decision by HDFS came after the lender used 2024 to reflect on its existing programs using technology to expand its services in a way that will drive growth and reach more consumers. In 2025, their plans were not left behind in 2024, though. And the lender does plan to review each of its programs through 2025. Including those for limited credit borrowers and first time borrowers. Also in 2024, New York based octane lending uses tech enabled platform to find methods beyond credit tightening to support dealers navigating this year’s retail headwinds.
For example, Octane’s launch of ride now finance in November allowed dealer group Ride, now powersports, to run its own branded financing promotions and integrate branded financing messaging into its marketing initiatives to reach customers throughout the life cycle of their loans.
And as we kick start 2025, we’re definitely going to be keeping an eye on where Octane’s tech board initiatives will lead them. Of how the market lands and sticking with that tech focused story theme, we also included source One Financial services in our top five Roundup in 2025. Source one plans to lean on technology to improve the shopping experience for consumers in the marine space where elevated stick. Prices are fueling consumer hesitancy. The Minnesota based lender is exploring the use of third party companies to add to its available technology in 2025. Sources with the company did not share specifics, but noted that improvements will help the lender offer simple digital financing capabilities. When consumers inevitably return to market following this pent up demand that we’ve seen. Gurnee and Yamaha Financial Services were also included in our holiday roundup given their hopes to reimagine their available technology and buyer program. Synchrony, for example, updated the value proposition on its Synchrony Outdoors credit card after dealers, citing consumer feedback, requested that the credit line be applicable on products with vehicle identification numbers priced below $5000. Meanwhile, Yamaha Financial Services is prioritizing underwriting consumer preference with hopes to identify where those tech. Are most desired when you look at these stories, there’s a common theme, which is that the power sports industry is gearing up for an improved retail environment in the coming year following the year of weakened consumer sentiment and weak sales. And 2024 though a year of. Many sales declines and dampened consumer confidence was a year of innovation and upgrades for many lenders and manufacturers in the powersports space. Going forward, I’m excited to see how these industry players plan to shift away from old practices using dealer and consumer feedback to determine where. Process could be improved, and with that I’ll turn it back over to Amanda for other key updates from the week. Amanda Harris 7:06 Thank you, Ashley and James. First I want to touch on some economic news. Initial applications for US unemployment ended 2024 at an 8 month low, with new claims down by 211,000 in the week in December 28 and continuing applications of those receiving benefits came in at a three month low of 1.84. Million in the week ended December 21st, and that’s according to Labor Department data. And automotive finance, a report by short seller Hindenburg Research, raised questions about CARVANA’S profitability. And business model highlighting aspects such as the retailers loan sales to third parties, portfolio performance and extension concerns, Carvana said. The report is misleading and inaccurate and reflects claims made by other short sellers in the past, saying several analysts that had conversations with me did have similar views, describing the report as including half truths, highlighting concerns that are not limited to Carvana but impact the entire automotive indust. JP Morgan published a reply report last week. That said, hidden birds concerns are nothing new and are already known by investors. JP Morgan hasn’t found any red flags in his own research on Carvana, but reiterated that more transparency into carvana’s relationship with his partners would be beneficial, a view also held by the analysts that I spoke with Carvana today announced it had renewed its forward flow agreement with. Ally Financial, in which Ally will purchase up to $4 billion in loan receivables from Carvana. Which that does kind of put a pin in one of the claims made in that short seller report. Worried about the future of that agreement? So that agreement is now back in place and we’ll have to see how all this shakes out in the weeks to come to come. This week is a look at how auto sales at the end of 2024 trended and a dive into new forecast on industry data. We’re also excited to host the Free webinar titled Tapping Aftermarket Products to improve dealer relations and profitability on Tuesday, January 14th at 10:45 AM Eastern Time. You can visit our website to learn more and to register. To attend, those are some highlights from the past week, and that about does it for today’s episode. Thanks for joining us on the road map and be sure to follow us on X and LinkedIn and we will see you online at autofinancenews.net and here next time.