GM Financial to pilot refinancing app

GM Financial will pilot a direct-to-consumer refinancing model this spring to prepare for an increasingly mobile and digital car-buying process.

The standalone mobile app, which will have non-GM Financial branding, is designed to conquest customers who have financed with other lenders and to develop a technology that can someday be used for indirect financing with General Motors' stores.

"Ultimately, more and more of the transaction is going to happen online or mobile," said GM Financial CEO Dan Berce. "The idea would be for us to use that technology we're developing to help us in our indirect activities over time."

GM Financial already sends more than 400,000 mailers a month to help bring leads to its dealer customers. The lender will continue the direct-mail approach to conquest non-GM Financial customers based on data from the credit bureaus.

"We have ways to make good assumptions on what we think they're driving," said Will Stacy, GM Financial chief marketing and digital officer.

The captive aims to refinance a Ford F-150 owner, for example. And then when that owner is in the market for a new vehicle, GM Financial aims to conquest him or her into a Chevrolet Silverado or GMC Sierra loan or lease.

The refinancing tool wouldn't take any business from the dealer, "and that's what we're sensitive to," Berce said. "We're going to be able to use [the technology] in our dealer platform but ... transact everything through mobile or online channels."