IT’S TIME TO TRADE EXCEL & ACCESS FOR INTEGRATED AUTO LOAN ANALYTICS

If you’re a lender with a legacy auto lending solution, you likely know you should upgrade to one with integrated auto analytics. Legacy auto lending solutions were installed well before the advent of big data and integrated analytics. Consequently, many lenders have resorted to two of the most versatile software tools in the industry: Excel and Access. However, this approach to transforming application, process, and portfolio data into meaningful insight through auto loan analytics finds hurdles in nearly every step of the way, prompting a series of questions.

Auto Loan Analytics Gives You Answers

What does the data really mean?

The immediate challenge for any Excel or Access developer iswas to understand the schema that defined the data being captured or generated by the legacy lending system. While the schema may have been documented, often the actual source, derivation, or meaning of data fields were subject to interpretation. In turn, this resultsed in inconsistency or confusion in developing analytic formulas, creating reports, and drawing credible and actionable conclusions from the results. Data quality issues may also have undermined the value of the analysis, without the data checks and verifications provided by modern fintech capabilities.

Why do I have to wait to get that report?

Waiting on Excel and Access experts to produce reports gets old. They have to to extract the relevant data from the warehouse, run the specific analysis, produce the report, and make it available by accessing a secure, centralized file system, sending email, or printing. Best practice is to make this a regularly scheduled activity, often automated. But this inefficient process means that reports never provide near-real-time analysis.  

It takes that long to make a simple change?

Regardless of guidance given the Excel or Access guru about what you need in the analysis and report, the end product is never quite right. When you (and many others) request any changes to the reports, it takes weeks before you see the updated reports, and it’s likely you already have a few more requests for additional changes.  

Why isn’t that information available?

There’s no denying auto loan analytics and reporting have value. You’ve benefited from the analyses and reports you already get, and you’d like to apply auto loan analytics to some additional areas of the lending process. Unfortunately, your legacy lending system may not have the capability to:

• Track time spent in key steps of the underwriting process;
• Summarize how many overrides were done (and by whom) during the last month;
• Determine the average turnaround time for your best dealers; or
• Tell you what percentage of applications were initiated via mobile devices.

Without that information, you’re really not getting a comprehensive picture of the performance of your lending practice.

Why are update and maintenance costs increasing?

What originally began as an economically-justifiable and needed system for auto loan analytics has become surprisingly costly to update and maintain. Excel and Access expertise are required to keep the system alive, respond to business user requests for modifications, and produce reports that only provide a fraction of the analytical insight that you really need to be competitive and profitable. With this high IT overhead and diminishing value, you’re right to look for alternatives.

Auto Loan Analytics with a Modern LOS

If the scenario above accurately describes your current approach to auto loan analytics, it will be difficult to justify maintaining the status quo, especially in today’s auto lending market. Legacy lending systems and home-grown auto loan analytics solutions are simply inadequate. In contrast, auto loan analytics fully integrated with a modern loan origination solution solves each of the home-grown shortcomings described above. Here are some of the benefits you’ll get from making the switch.

• Data schema, definitions, and measures established by the LOS are completely known to the analytics solution. There’s no need to spend time on integration, data interpretation, or setting up the metrics required for accurate analyses.
• Data quality is enhanced by the verification and anti-fraud capabilities of the latest fintech advances.
• A highly-intuitive interface for business users lets them configure analyses and reports specific to their business needs, and drill down to explore the data in greater detail. You can put your Excel guru to work in other areas of the business that don’t yet have access to smart analtyics tools.
• Near real-time reporting delivers analytic results with updates every 15 minutes.
• Analyses can be scheduled to run automatically. Reports are securely available accessible via any device running a browser.
• Data and report format can automatically vary based upon user or role. No need to create custom reports for every user.

Lenders now have the ability to easily analyze the wealth of application, process, and portfolio data available with modern loan origination solutions. This analytical insight can be applied to improve nearly every aspect of your lending practice. With these capabilities and benefits, it’s time to trade Excel and Access for integrated auto loan analytics.