Driving Solutions with Jim Fitzpatrick, powered by CBT News

How eLEND Solutions Streamlines Dealer Financing — Pete MacInnis

• CBT News • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Pete MacInnis, CEO of eLEND Solutions, joins Driving Solutions to discuss the company’s recent Finance Report and how its fintech platform is helping dealerships overcome inefficiencies in auto financing. He explains how outdated credit-tier models can create a $4.7 billion annual revenue gap for dealers and outlines how modern, dynamic lender practices are reshaping the financing landscape.

MacInnis details how eLEND’s tools integrate credit, identification, and financial workflows to streamline pre-approval and deal-making processes. The platform reduces friction, accelerates transactions, and protects margins while maintaining SOC 2 Type II compliance and robust audit trails. He also highlights the new DealMaker tool, which seamlessly connects digital retailing, CRM, and inventory systems to dealer finance workflows—allowing dealerships to improve accuracy, speed, and customer satisfaction across the sales process.

Key discussion points:

  • The $4.7 billion annual revenue loss caused by outdated credit-tier models
  • Transition from fixed FICO tiers to dynamic lender pricing models
  • How eLEND integrates credit, ID, and finance tools to streamline deals
  • DealMaker tool for connecting digital retailing and finance workflows
  • Ensuring compliance, reducing errors, and protecting dealer profitability
  • Enhancing customer experience and transaction speed

Driving Solutions is the go-to podcast for dealership professionals who want to stay sharp, informed, and ahead of the curve. Hosted by Jim Fitzpatrick and powered by CBT News, each episode brings you real strategies, smart tools, and expert insights to help you run a more profitable operation.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and visit CBTNews.com for more.

Announcer:

This is Driving Solutions exclusively on CBTnews.com.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Hi everyone, Jim Fitzpatrick. Welcome into another episode of Driving Solutions right here at CBTnews.com. Joining us now in the studio is Mr. Pete MaciInnis. You've seen him here before. He's the CEO of eLEND Solutions. eLEND Solutions recently released a finance report that was published right here at CBT News. The report revealed a massive disconnect between initial payment term quotes and lender decisions that cost dealers an estimated $4.7 billion a year in lost revenue opportunity. So, Pete, give us kind of a high-level uh view of this and what's causing this huge disconnect.

Pete MacInnis:

Yeah, so what caused it initially is, you know, you've got all these digital retailing companies, website providers, you know, customers want payments, so they give them payments. Sure. And it's based upon this legacy FICO credit score tier bands for vehicles. So they basically put everybody into a tier and said, this is your credit score range, so therefore you're going to get this rate. Right. And so they've been doing that, you know, forever. Yeah. But what's happened is, and that's coming off of lender digital rate sheets, you know, the whole guidance they provide going back forever. Well, most lenders don't provide those anymore. Right. Most of your major lenders have stopped doing that. Right. And yet the pricing model is still doing, you know, giving customers off something that's no longer relevant. Because lenders have actually moved away from that to these dynamic pricing models, all the way down to the individual customer qualification level. So instead of it just being that single attribute of credit score, it's now like, okay, credit is what's the high credit, how long they've been on the credit report, what's the revolving debt availability, stuff like that. Or it could be, they could include stability attributes like, okay, uh, how long it's a residence, how long an employment, are they a homeowner? Or they could be ability attributes, things like uh what's their minimum income, what's a debt to income, payment to income, loan to value ratio, stuff like that uh for the customer's qualifications, or it could get into deal structure. It could be deal structure says, okay, uh, what's the front-end advance, the back end advance? Is it a new? Is it used? Is it certified? Yeah. There's a lot going into that payment. Yeah, it's the mileage, it's the term. And those are just a subset of those um criteria that a lender would use. You know, they've got this black box, machine learning, AI-based deal now, where it's always improving itself so they have a better performance. Well, that's wonderful for the lenders, but what happened? It's completely disconnected from the front end of the sales process where payments are actually being quoted.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Okay.

Pete MacInnis:

So that's that's the problem.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Okay. The finance report put a huge spotlight on this huge problem, as I mentioned. I asked you to come back in, you know, to talk to us about this and what eLEND Solutions is has created to solve this huge disconnect between sales and finance.

Pete MacInnis:

Yes. Okay, well, thank you, Jim, so much for having me. And let us come back and talk about our fintech platform and it's featuring deal makers. So, what it is, it's a robust platform of credit identification and finance solutions for the benefit of consumers, dealers, and lenders. Okay. And what it does is a fintech platform that helps customers to do more of the process remotely. Okay. It brings sales and finance together at the front of the sales process. It reduces friction and fraud up front. Right. And then what does that result in? You know, better customer experience, CSI scores, increased profitability for both um dealer and lender as well.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

So saves the dealer if there's a fraud element in there, and obviously that's a huge concern dealers have these days, right?

Pete MacInnis:

Correct.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, yeah, no question about it. So um in in terms of um eLEND FinTech for retail automotive, what what what is that?

Pete MacInnis:

Yeah. So what it is, it's a combination of all those things I chose. Really for us, it starts at the very front end around our legacy business, which is uh our credit solutions. And you know, if you you think about it, we pioneered the very first digital credit app that had a pre-approval tied to actual credit. Then we pioneered the first pre-quall. Now everybody's, you know, me too doing that stuff, right? And uh so for us, you know, over the last 15 years, we probably enhanced that credit suite of products. We probably had about a thousand enhancements to it from their from its original state, right? So it's a very robust platform that we call it. Right. And and for us with that, um, the result is we've had customers like Longo Toyota, the biggest dealer in the country, the largest, yeah, has been for- Norma Reeves Honda, the number one Honda dealer in the country. Those have both been customers for over 20 years. Wow. So we really kind of built all of that in the front end, and 80% of those thousand enhancements were dealer requests.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Okay.

Pete MacInnis:

So it's very conducive to process workflow that the dealers want.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, right.

Pete MacInnis:

We started with that, and then you just mentioned about the identification solutions. Um we red flag over a billion dollars worth of potential vehicle purchase rod each year. Wow. And it's out there. It's out there. And so we're red flagging that for dealers, and we've got customers like five of the six publicly held dealer groups. You know, one of them's a hundred percent of their stores, another one's majority on their way, another one we have all the biggest stores. Yeah, that's true.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

So it speaks volumes. I mean, that that's huge because you know publicly traded companies, they do a deep dive on all their vendors and make sure they're choosing the right ones. And so that's that's a huge feather in your cap.

Pete MacInnis:

Yeah, so you start the credit and then you know, the identification, those are very important to get all that right up front.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah.

Pete MacInnis:

Um, saves a lot of the efficiency, saving time and stuff like that.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

So, how does how does your fintech platform provide all of that?

Pete MacInnis:

So we bring that together. So then we now we're we're launching, which is the whole fintech and the and uh platform featuring our deal makers. So that's really the back end, the finance piece. Okay. Now the finance piece is how do we bring that forward? So what that does, Jim, to solve that problem with the payments is we'll take that credit application data up front, get the lender consent, right, and we'll push it all the way through to the lender, get that lender decision response coming back. Right. And now that lender tells us what that customer's credit tier is and how they actually qualify. Yeah. Instead of it that separated process, front and back end. So what we do is now that we have that, we can dump that into our fin desking. So it's a desking tool that's finance driven. Okay. So think about your traditional desking tool that has your jurisdictional tax license and registration fee. It's got your stack of incentives embedded in all that. Yep. So what we do is this desking tool on the left side, it's that traditional stuff, but embedded within it, it's interactive with lender decisioning. So as the deal changes, the trade and changes, the down isn't what it really was. Yeah. How do we qualify this customer, get them to those payments? Yeah. It actually can be in real time interactive with real-time lender decisioning.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Okay.

Pete MacInnis:

And of course, we have a lot of algorithms built into that for that. So now we allow that dealer to, in essence, desk structure that deal for negotiation at the front of the sales process. So we're bringing that lender forward as part of that process that does not exist today.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Okay. Okay.

Pete MacInnis:

And so now the dealer can quote that exactly up front and have the deal stick. So you think about the friction reduction when you tell the customer this is your payment, it actually really is.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing.

Pete MacInnis:

What does that happen to front-end profit? Yep. Right. Yep. Um, increased sales, back end profit, CSR, all those types of things. So we're bringing that forward. So then we have this customer gateway tool. So it doesn't matter if it's the customer's rewrote or not, it enables the dealer to actually interact in real time through the secure portal with that customer to get to those terms. So by the time they get to the dealership, the deal's done. Done. It's done. Yeah. Right? And it's got the building profitability, right? And the dealer knows what his dealer participation is going to be. Yep. He has those levers that he can move around to make a deal and and keep his profit in the deal. So we do all that. So that's the remote, but in store, there's also an agent tool. So you know, instead of the agent running back and forth to the desk standing in on a busy Saturday waiting for can we do this? Yep. That that we're we're doing all of that calculations and that real-time stuff. And it's just basically allowing that desk guy to go, yes, this is the way you want to do it. Hits the button, agent turns the screen around, says, here, pick your terms and your options, and it's a done deal. Peter already knows what the profitability is. And he also knows it's a fundable deal with the lender.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Right, right.

Pete MacInnis:

So we're really trying to bring those fundable contract terms to the negotiation process up front. Nice. And that's really what our FinTech platform is all about.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Very nice. So and now you're launching DealMaker. Tell us about that.

Pete MacInnis:

Yeah. So the Deal Maker is really the transactional part of that to say, how do we get take everything we've done ahead of that, you know, the whole customer's buying journey from the lead information through APIs, you know, so we can have AP, we're we're we have APIs throughout the ecosystem, whether it's um CRMs or or credit repositories or credit resellers or inventory tools or the dealer tracks and the route ones and the DMSs and and the whole omni-channel presence from digital retailing and websites. And we just gather all the data and all the information and move it from online to in-store seamlessly. There's no starting over. Very nice. And we just do everything upfront and just say it just does it automatically and supports whatever process flow that that dealer should have. They can plug and play it anywhere they want in their workflow that works best for their best practices.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

That's great. That's great. As an industry thought leader, you've brought a profound insight into a major problem that needs solved. As an innovator, your company, ELEND, has created the solutions for that problem.

Pete MacInnis:

Well, we sure hope so. We've been working on it. And again, listening to dealers for 20 years, you know, um, with it with our platform and and and saying what's your challenges, what are your problems, what keeps you awake at night?

Jim Fitzpatrick:

And yeah, you really built it around the needs of the dealer.

Pete MacInnis:

And so we really focused on the whole credit ID and finance side and say, this is our role. You know, we're not in the front end lead gen. It's you know, it's not part of that. We're really about the deal generation. How can we get the dealer together with the customer up front that removes friction, gets them to a deal faster sooner, protects their profitability, increases CSI, and everybody goes away happy?

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. I mean, that especially today with the pressure on the dealer to get these numbers right and also to have minimize, you know, CITs and make sure that that relationship between the customer and the salesperson, the salesperson and the desk manager, the desk manager and the finance manager. I mean, it's 2025. Uh, you know, for you guys at Elon Solutions to put all this together is has got to be a huge welcome, right, for for so many deals.

Pete MacInnis:

Well, you know, when we talked about the fraud, the vehicle purchase fraud list, there's fraud, but then there's actually loan fraud. I mean, you look at the reports coming out from companies going, you know, eight, nine billion dollars in fraud annually. That's great. Crown fraud. Yeah, you know, when you have tools that are built in that says, hey, there's actually audit trails that can take it from did the customer change their data, manipulate the data at home? Was it done in the store where they coached? Was it actually done in the dashboard, payment date stamp? Who actually changed that person's income? But it turns out to be a problem because now the car's on the road. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. And now you got to have to have a buyback. That's right. You know, and it's like what happened. You know, so there's a lot of compliance tools built into it. Um, you know, there's so much going on with cybersecurity these days. That's right. You know, we're very proud of being a SOC 2 type 2 certified company, protecting the data at the highest levels possible in the industry. So when I said it's a really robust platform, it really is because it's something that we've built over 20 years. Yeah. And we're finally connected all the dots in this workflow process to be able to support deater sell more cars faster with increased profitability.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

It's no wonder you have all the publicly traded companies on board, or most all of them. And uh and and as I said before, that's a huge feather in your cap at Elend Solutions, because as you know, they put you under a microscope, don't they? I mean, these bigger companies. Needless to say, so do a lot of the larger private companies that are out there that have got 100, 150 stores. I mean, it's it's the you're in it, you're in, you sit in that seat where you got to get it right, and it sounds like you have.

Pete MacInnis:

Well, yeah, and you you have to not only build a platform and you know, it's much more than a widget. You know, you're gonna say, okay, when you talk about big groups, it's like do you have it set up at the group level and then a region level? Yeah. And how do they get access to different information? Who gets, you know, and managing all of that and supporting their initiatives is a big deal. And we're we're very fortunate and proud to be able to support uh the you know dealers on an yeah.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

It's great. Folks, if you haven't already, download ELEN's finance study uh report published right here at CBT News that revealed an estimated, you know, as I mentioned, $4.7 billion a year in lost revenue opportunities for dealers. I also you encourage you to reach out to ELEN Solutions to learn more about their fintech and retail automotive solutions. So thank you so much uh for coming by. Really appreciate it, Pete. It's always great having you in the studio. Always get such great comments and questions from dealers that see the segments. So again, you know, the um I'm so impressed with the platform that you've put together at Eland Solutions. As I mentioned, it's 2025. The time has come that dealers get this right in this area, right?

Pete MacInnis:

Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me, Jim, and helping us get the word out.

Jim Fitzpatrick:

Sure, sure. Thanks so much.

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