CRIF Select Corporation continues to build on its record as an innovative leader in providing indirect lending services on behalf of credit unions and auto dealers since 1984.
CRIF Select currently serves 130 member-owned credit unions and approximately 7,000 new and used auto dealers, providing business process outsourcing (BPO) services, ancillary services, and industry insight that together make CRIF Select a vital partner in creating, building, and maintaining successful indirect lending programs.
Learn how CRIF Select can help partner credit unions and dealers so they get ahead and stay ahead.
Talk a bit about your products and services.
Jeremy Engbrecht: CRIF Select specializes in helping credit unions create, maintain, and grow their loan portfolios with our indirect lending programs. We help create new programs as well as assist in existing indirect lending programs. We have programs for automotive, motorcycle, marine, and RV. Several of our partners have leasing programs.
Our goal is to make successful programs, and we do that with a combination of technology and services like dealer management and paperless loan package processing. Our BPO services allow a credit union to scale effectively without adding costly staff to serve the automotive dealerships at a high level.
Our tagline is “We Make Lending Easy,” so whether your goals are loan growth, member growth, or footprint growth, CRIF Select is the perfect solution.
What is the state of auto lending? What trends do you see?
JE: There currently is a good appetite from auto dealers for loans. Credit union liquidity continues to be prevalent in the current rate environment. Most of our lending partners are forecasting indirect lending to grow in 2024 over 2023.
We are definitely seeing the underserved member challenges on access to credit. Our credit unions are partnering with companies like Open Lending to ensure they are servicing their entire member and new member spectrum. We are seeing captive auto lenders use circumvented rates and offerings to take back new car financing from credit unions that had it in 2022. Credit unions are, however, still extremely strong in the used car financing sector.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are ramping up and lenders are still trying to understand residual values and performance of the loans on this segment. Some of our lenders are creating programs specifically for EV lending.
Overall, the 2024 outlook looks steady for the first time in many years.
How does CRIF Select help credit unions identify the right dealership partners?
JE: CRIF Select does a variety of things to ensure our credit unions are partnered with the right dealerships. We serve both franchise and used-car dealerships. We look at sales numbers, financial stability, and overall business reputation. We do this not only when we sign up auto dealerships but also annually on behalf of each of our credit unions. This is very important to ensure portfolio performance on behalf of our credit union partners.
Our field and management employees also have more than 300 years of combined automotive experience. We consider ourselves dealer-friendly and ensure our dealer partners understand how to work effectively with credit unions, both from a technology standpoint and relationally.
“We always tell credit unions to ask the dealers how they like to do business with their lending partners. It’s vital to be on platforms such as DealerTrack and RouteOne as this is how dealers want to communicate. We are, and it’s one of our competitive differentiators.”
How does selecting the right partner help credit unions and dealerships build synergistic partnerships and enhance the member experience?
JE: Selecting the right partner is extremely important to ensure stability and the performance of your indirect lending program. Technology, services, and market knowledge are all extremely important when selecting a vendor partner.
We always tell credit unions to ask the dealers how they like to do business with their lending partners. It’s vital to be on platforms such as DealerTrack and RouteOne as this is how dealers want to communicate. We are, and it’s one of our competitive differentiators.
Describe the integration of your solution into credit unions’ technology platforms and the demands it does or doesn’t place on credit union staff.
JE: CRIF Select integrates with all major core banking systems. This is extremely important to ensure productivity is maximized upon growth of a program.
The integration with core banking systems also allows things like real-time membership lookups so auto dealers know how to contract and contact the member quickly and efficiently.
Also, CRIF Select works with companies like Zest that credit unions use for score cards and credit decisions.
How does CRIF Select help credit unions manage risk and ensure compliance when partnering with dealerships?
JE: CRIF is a global organization. Our core business is in the credit bureau space. Although we do not own a credit bureau in the United States, we use our global capabilities in credit risk to ensure our partner credit unions have the best software and consulting available.
What makes CRIF Select’s solutions, service, and support different from competitors?
JE: Although CRIF Select ensures our credit unions have all they need to be successful within indirect lending, our business model has been — and always will be — auto-dealer friendly.
An example of this is our document automation product, which does not make the dealers change their core way of doing business but provides value to both the credit unions and the auto dealers by digitizing the process. We use our BPO services in many ways, in fact, to ensure better, more productive relationships between our credit unions and auto dealers.
Our field staff all have auto dealership experience; thus, they understand what dealers are looking for and have meaningful conversations and meetings with them.
How can credit unions learn more about CRIF Select?
JE: To learn more about CRIF Select and how our tailored solutions can benefit your credit union, please contact our sales team at sales@crif.com or visit our website at www.crifselect.com/contact.
