BMW Financial Services ranked highest for captive lenders and Bank of Montreal came in first among non-captive lenders in J.D. Power’s annual Canadian Dealer Financing Satisfaction Study. “I think lenders need to look at how they staff themselves both from a credit desk perspective and a sales rep perspective,” said Jim Houston, Senior Director of Automotive Finance at J.D. Power, who also led the study.
The study, currently in its nineteenth year, was restructured to gauge the different ways dealers view OEM-related captive lenders and independent, non-captive lenders such as banks, said Houston.
“Today, we’re saying: the dealer looks at their captive differently than the non-captive.” He explained that the volume of business between captives and non-captives has not changed, based on factors such as rate structure and credit appetite.
Captive lenders, however, are seen as problem solvers within the scope of a vehicle sale, said Houston. Nevertheless, dealers inevitably turn to the credit desk as the first point of contact for funding questions, held contracts, deal restructuring and other issues, with both captive and non-captive lenders.
The survey also found that dealers who have the highest levels of satisfaction with particular lenders have a primary buyer or buying team assigned to their dealerships.
The 2017 Canadian Dealer Financing Satisfaction Study captured approximately 3,750 finance provider evaluations from new-vehicle dealerships and was conducted in January-February, 2017.
Look out for more on this story in the June/July issue of Canadian auto dealer.
