First technology to bring real, approved financing terms to the FRONT of the sales process, whether consumers are shopping at auto websites or in-dealership

Creates dramatic dealership efficiencies by cutting the transaction process from hours to minutes; a turn-key solution that ensures dealerships would be in total compliance with proposed CFPB regulations

New Orleans, LA - January 25, 2014 – E-LEND Solutions™ today announced that, after three years of research and development, its next-generation, patented auto finance platform will be unveiled to dealerships Q1 2014.  E-LEND is designed to positively transform the way auto financing “gets done,” and to help dealers sell and finance more cars with more speed, transparency and profitability than ever before.  

E-LEND’s loan decisioning engine is the first to:

• Display real, approved financing terms from dealership lenders at the very front of the shopping process to consumers - whether they’re researching at a dealership, OEM or auto portal website.
• Enable dealerships to cut the inefficient 3-4 hour sales and financing process to minutes, resulting in huge time and cost savings – and much improved customer satisfaction.
• Eliminate the guesswork and human error in determining loan terms (which often leads to costly loan rewrites and deal unwinds) - by aggregating lenders’ complex pricing and loan rules data inside the decision engine.
• Ensure ironclad dealer compliance if proposed CFPB regulations come to pass, by providing transparency, consistently applied underwriting criteria and detailed reporting on every step of the finance decision.

“The way cars have been financed at dealerships hasn’t really changed in a century – the only thing new is that instead of using the phone or fax machine to exchange credit apps and make decisions, dealers now do the same old thing electronically via loan aggregators,” said Pete MacInnis, CEO of E-LEND.  “It’s a process that is time-consuming, completely inefficient and rife with errors.  We created E-LEND to solve these age old problems and offer our industry a much-needed ‘next generation’ of auto finance.”

In addition to streamlining the process, E-LEND delivers a solution that meets new challenges faced by dealer F&I departments: today’s savvy consumers are demanding the same transparency in financing (upfront terms online) that they expect with vehicle pricing – and they are increasingly bypassing the dealership to get it.  Additionally, there is a real threat of government legislation to mandate transparency into how loan terms get set.  E-LEND is the first solution that tackles all these issues.

A Broken Dealership Financing Process: Most sales and financing departments are set up as independent “silos,” which prevent the flow of customer info, and result in today’s long, multi-stage purchasing process. Dealership sales managers eyeball the customer’s credit history to negotiate car price and finance terms without the involvement of any lenders (and without the ability to master the intense complexities of multiple lenders’ loan parameters and rules). Dealership sales managers use educated guesswork to set the financing rate with the consumer. Following that, F&I departments then “spray and pray” these terms to multiple lenders, hoping that the lender’s “black box” returns a matching decision.  All of which leads to an inefficient process and frequent loan rewrites.

How E-LEND Works (to Fix It): E-LEND’s platform allows auto lenders (whether OEM captives, banks, credit unions or specialty finance) to configure their exact credit programs, and build loan rules as complex as they require, through easy-to-use modules on the E-LEND dashboard.

When a consumer submits a credit application online or at a dealership computer, E-LEND’s smart technology instantly authenticates their identity, pulls their credit file, matches it to a chosen vehicle/price, and then “crunches” all that data against rate and rule data from the universe of lenders aggregated within the engine.

The result: real, final, approved loan terms from multiple lenders (including APR, monthly payment and length of loan) available to the dealer, in seconds.

More Benefits for Dealers AND Lenders:

• E-LEND functions for the auto finance supply chain as “Intel Inside” did for computers in the 90s. That means that “E-LEND Inside” is industry neutral and doesn’t compete with other dealer product/service providers, whether OEM websites, auto portals, dealer sites, inventory management providers, chat tools, CRM/desk tools, credit repositories, loan aggregators, loan origination systems, lenders or dealer management systems (DMS).

• Both dealerships and lenders are facing possible new CFPB regulations that would require that consumer loan rates are “discrimination-free.” Because E-LEND’s decision engine is 100% rules-based and objective, it makes any accusation of discriminatory lending “virtually” impossible. And with detailed audit trails tracking why every loan application was approved at that exact rate, it provides real protection for dealers and lenders against CFPB scrutiny and threats.

Unique Dealer Benefits – Ready-to-Buy customers, compatibility and efficiency:

• Because E-LEND allows profitable deals to get structured online or during test-drives, it gives finance managers more time to sell backend products.

• Unlike low closing “leads,” online-generated E-LEND loan applications represent the readiest-to-buy customers possible for dealers. And because the decision engine determines the overall amount a consumer can afford, the monthly payment, and down payment required, dealerships can put customers in the right vehicle and structure a profitable deal in minutes.

• Regardless of which desk tool they use, dealers can structure a purchase transaction, click on the embedded E-LEND button, and see a waterfall of lender programs that that customer qualifies for: from basic credit filtering to fully automated decisions with “Fund it Now!” messaging.

• Dealers can rely on E-LEND loan decisions as final terms of approval, but still retain the ability to forward applications to traditional electronic loan aggregators.

Unique Lender Benefits:

• E-LEND’s decision engine precisely matches credit apps to a lender’s pre-set, proprietary loan rules. So, unlike the current system where lenders are forced to process all apps, when only a few ultimately qualify for funding, E-LEND only delivers customers that a lender is likely to fund. This means deals are financed faster, with lower origination costs.

“The current outdated, low-tech financing process is costing dealers much more time and money than they realize – and seriously alienating their customers,” said MacInnis. “We know that bringing financing decisions to the front of the sales process is a dramatically new concept. So we invite all dealers and lenders to demo E-LEND, and fully understand how this new platform can make dealership financing radically more efficient, and even more profitable.”

About E-LEND Solutions:

E-LEND Solutions was founded in 2003 as DealerCentric, whose “Get Pre-Approved in Seconds” solution represents the auto industry’s leading online credit application product. The company has since expanded its mission by developing a comprehensive, next-generation consumer finance management system that will benefit dealers, lenders and consumers. E-LEND Solutions technology platform will bring financing to the front of the sales process, and put the customer in the right vehicle and loan, at the point of sale, reducing the dealership financing process from hours to minutes.  E-LEND Solutions is headed by Pete MacInnis, who leads a management team with over 250 years of automotive, finance and technology experience.  

Media Relations Contact: 

mWEBB Communications
Melanie Webber, (949) 307-1723 / melanie@mwebbcom.com 
Cassandra Cavanah, (818) 397-4630 / cassandra@mwebbcom.com