Situation:
The finance arm of a commercial truck OEM needed a way to increase the percentage of captive financing through the OEM dealerships. They suspected that their penetration was very low and continued to shrink.

Solution:
Polk proposed matching the sales VINs (supplied by the OEM) to Polk registration data and reporting out the finance information. On a quarterly basis, Polk receives sales VINs, with OEM proprietary data, and performs a match through our New Truck database. On an as needed basis, Polk runs the VINs against the VIO database. Polk then supplies back to the finance company the matched VINs with the Polk registration data (including financing data) and the OEM proprietary data appended at a dealerized level.

Results:

• The captive finance arm discovered that its market share was very low. In several cases, the major financing source at some dealerships was through banks and credit unions. They also found that they were not even receiving finance applications on the sales of vehicles at the dealerships.
• The OEMs “re-educated” their dealerships and is currently tracking results quarterly.
• Applications and financing through the company have since increased consistently over the past 12 months.