Car loan process goes digital

A finance company has digitalised its lending process to help car buyers secure vehicle loans in a contactless environment.

Oxford Finance says plans to update its systems were accelerated because of the Covid-19 outbreak. It claims its new approach is more secure and convenient for consumers.

The company has turned to technology to improve methods for ID verification, checking bank statements and signing documents.

Shannon Beech, national sales and marketing manager, says the level four lockdown was a “motivator to look at doing things better”.

“We looked at how a broker or dealer, when arranging a contactless delivery of a vehicle, could issue loan documents and have the customer sign up without being face-to-face and sharing a pen, all whilst ensuring full disclosure,” she explains.

“The dealers and brokers love what we’ve done and had been asking for this sort of innovation before Covid-19 came along.”
Oxford now uses Cloudcheck, an electronic ID verification system that confirms the identity of customers in seconds using biometric checks.

It works by customers providing two photographs, one of their face from the front and one at a 45-degree angle, which are checked against the image on the photo ID they have provided, such as a driver’s licence.

Software created by an Australasian data and analytics company is also helping Oxford securely retrieve customers’ bank statements before approving finance. It has sped up the approval process because it means customers no longer need to print and scan pages of bank documents.

The final part of digitalising the loan process has been adopting Secured Signing. Instead of traditional paper forms, electronic documents are sent to customers and feature secure sign fields. The technology uses multiple methods of verification, such as email and cellphone numbers.

“We no longer need people to be face-to-face to sign documents and a lot more clients are using it then we thought, partly because of Covid-19 but also because of ease,” notes Beech.

She says having fully digitalised the process for consumer loans, Oxford is now looking to roll out those systems for commercial loan documentation.

Oxford Finance is one of many businesses that has innovated this year to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Check out the October edition of Autofile magazine to discover some of the other developments in the automotive industry.