When researching or educating yourself on auto finance, it’s important to read a variety of auto finance blogs to gather different perspectives and ideas to apply to your business.
The following list consists of our favorite auto finance news sources and blogs we read regularly for education, tips, tricks, and more.
Top Auto Finance News Sites
- AutoFinanceNews is probably the most important publication in the auto finance industry. It is the leading source for insights, news, and analysis on everything that is auto lending-related. Here is a cool article of theirs about AI in auto lending.
- Automotive News is considered the newspaper of record for the automotive industry. This paper is read and written globally with 55 editors working all around the world. Here is one great article to check out about Wells Fargo wanting to close their digital gap.
- Auto Remarketing covers developments and trends in the car industry. A great segment of their site is auto financing. It concentrates on topics related to Business Intelligence for Automotive and Auto FinTech Executives. This is one of our favorite sites to read up on auto financing.
- Ward Auto is one of the longest-lived news providers on automobiles. They have been around since the first vehicles were rolling off the assembly lines. Now, they are offering insights globally on industry trends and major changes that one would need to know in the industry. Here is a recent article of theirs about how customers are becoming more and more internet-centric in the buying process.
- RoadLoans is a great site to read all auto lending. They mainly focus on auto financing, unlike many other auto-financing resources. This blog has articles on driver tips, financing, and refinancing and sometimes a bit of entertainment.
- DigitalDealer helps dealers sell more and become more profitable by creating interesting and informative live events and media on industry topics. They have a blog section dedicated to financing and insurance. One great article of theirs about auto financing is from January 2018. It talks about the movement toward financing through digital contracting to increase customer satisfaction.
- DealerMarketing is a site and also a monthly magazine that is sent to over 18,000 auto dealers in the U.S. and Canada. This content is written by a team of auto marketing experts and offers advice to professionals across the industry. It is a trade magazine focused on business success. If you want to get a taste of their great content check out this article on
- PureCars assists dealerships in dominating digital marketing using marketing automation. In addition, they have an informative blog about automobiles. Here is one of their articles about improving your dealership’s conquesting that is worth checking out.
- JustAuto offers global automotive industry news and analysis. These are some of the most researched and insightful articles you can find in the industry. They support all the new best practices when they become aware of. Go check out their site JustAuto.
- PYMNTS.com is a site that can not only boost their daily readers of payment professionals but also of a much wider audience. Their content covers everything from retail invention to the Internet of Things. An interesting auto finance article of theirs is “Blockchain Tries To Jolt B2B eCommerce Into The Digital Age.”
- Ligthico covers auto finance news and industry trends. They help create a seamless customer experience and reduce auto loan application abandonment. Today 70% of customers are abandoning there auto loan applications. For customers to compete, auto lenders today must transform the way they interact with today’s consumers.
Digital processes have become more pervasive across customer segments worldwide. For lenders, this is an opportunity to consider more fluid and virtual ways to secure customer loyalty and optimize costs. Yet this is an opportunity that is largely being unrealized.
More than ever, an arduous, time-consuming customer journey can well be the difference between a completed and abandoned loan application. Abandonment rates for online loan applications are at an all-time high of 97.5%. This is because customers today have the power to switch from one lender to the next in an instant. As a result, customer loyalty has all but disappeared: a mere 23% of people say they have a relationship with a brand.
The Mobile Age
Today, 79% of people check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up. And once they’re awake, they’re increasingly choosing to stay connected by incorporating the latest technology into their daily lives. According to research published by salesforce, 64% of consumers expect companies to instantly respond and interact with them.
This customer service expectation also applies to loan applicants, who expect seamless, complete and simple interactions. And they expect to complete their applications from anywhere, anytime.
Research shows that the cell phone is the starting point for 80% of Internet searches. For lenders, providing a delightful, productive customer journey on the cell phone isn’t a nice to have – it’s a requirement. Here’s the reason: 43% of adults say that they regularly use their smartphone for financial management, including loans.
Innovation
Digital innovations can enable loan originators to simplify operations and create a seamless customer experience and reduce loan application abandonment. Today, loan originators have proven technologies they can implement to accelerate their application processes. By adopting consumer-friendly technology, lenders can leverage their LOS, improve their yield, cut their application cycle time and quickly bridge the CX gap in auto lending.
Mobile’s Challenges
The digital transformation that’s now taking hold in the lending world is not without its challenges. According to Monetate’s quarterly e-commerce study, only 2.03% of smartphone users convert, compared to 4.19% of tablet users and 4.68% of desktop/traditional users. There’s still a significant conversion gap between mobile and traditional that needs to be closed as users continue to use their mobile devices.
To unlock the potential of digital lending, lenders need to prioritize their mobile loan application processes. By streamlining the customer journey and optimizing loan application processes for mobile devices, lenders have a potent way to boost completion rates and improve application yield.
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