When I recently got the opportunity to speak to the defi team at one of our weekly “Lunch and Learns,” I wondered aloud about what in the world I had to say. Then someone said, “I love hearing the stories about how you worked with actual NADA ‘books’.”
Really? That’s interesting to you?
I started in the auto finance industry in 1994. It seems like yesterday, and I guess I talk a lot about it around the office. (I didn’t realize how few of my coworkers knew what I was even talking about or how old I sounded.)
The old processes we used involved pencil and paper, and feet on the pavement. As I talked, the team asked questions that sparked some memories that I had totally forgotten (or maybe blocked out on purpose!).
- Visiting dealers and seeing the binders of program sheets from all of your competition.
- Filling out manual underwriting worksheets to calculate DTI, PTI, LTV.
- Filling out manual funding checklists (drawers full of photo copies of photo copies).
- Calculating and training on the many varieties of POI.
- Calling employers (yes!, actually dialing the phone) and landlords (who were probably the applicant’s brother); calling neighbors (and moms) to offer a finder’s fee on skips.
- Tracking down repos with a MAPSCO and blocking in cars while waiting for a tow truck.
- Manually having to bookout a vehicle with the newest NADA (from the bookshelf), calculate LTV, check the program sheet to make sure you’re in line with line 3 and line 5 policy.
We took a lot of risks back in the day and now we have technology resources at our finger tips.
- Rules for underwriting to ensure consistency and profitability.
- Ability to quickly tweak underwriting strategies and funding policies.
- Immediate dealer communication and mobile access to application information.
- Third party integrations that pop up underwriting, verification and servicing data from employers, non-bank creditors, auto history.
- Regulation compliance.
- Scoring models.
- Fraud detection.
- Electronic contract packages.
- Vehicle tracking using GPS locator and ignition kill switch for skipped customers.
…on and on…
You don’t want to be stuck back in the day. It’s really only great to talk about.
Connect with Natalie Pedigo here!
