外文题目：THREE TRENDS ARE RESHAPING AUTO FINANCE 出 处：ABA BANKING JOURNAL FEB97 作 者：anonymous 原 文：THREE TRENDS ARE RESHAPING AUTO FINANCEIn automotive finance, two important trends appear well-established and poised for further advances in 1997: More non-prime or sub-prime lending. More leasing. A third movement, which may or may not amount to a major trend, is the advent of used-car superstores geared to high-volume selling. SUB-PRIME-NEARLY MAINSTREAM A well-known economist who tracks automobile sales predicted at year-end that some 1.1 million households will have declared bankruptcy in 1996. Thats not all bad, he said. It means 1.1 million more subprime borrowers. Perhaps he was being facetious, or perhaps not. The fact is, non-prime or sub-prime auto lending is no longer looked upon as an expedient to be resorted to only in extreme cases. Depending on the definition, estimates of this marketplace range between $70 billion and $90 billion, and clearly it is coming closer to the mainstream as an alternative borrowing technique for a sizable proportion of the population. The reasons are bluntly demographic: divorce, high medical expenses, and corporate downsizing leading to job losses are among the principal factors that have hurt the credit standing of hundreds of thousands of potential borrowers. Some are forced into bankruptcy, while others manage to avoid it but see their household budgets severely strained. Figures on consumer loan delinquencies are running high. Large numbers of would-be borrowers may be badly stretched, but they still need personal transportation, and will go to considerable lengths to obtain financing. That makes them logical candidates for sub-prime lending. By definition, these are higher-risk borrowers, but it does not automatically follow that they are all poor credit risks. Many are anxious for a chance to get on a solid footing and reestablish themselves as good credit risks. Lenders increasingly recognize this. As one specialist put it, We lend to those who need a second chance, not a last chance. For lenders, the screening process is crucial. Banks and finance companies have long experience with credit card and other consumer lending, and in recent years, the tendency has been to use computerized credit scoring to segment different categories of credit risk, then assign different rates and conditions to different market segments. Credit scoring has the advantages of being fast, consistent, objective, and based on real-life experience with different categories of borrowers. Similarly, auto insurers do not automatically ban drivers with records of speeding violations; they segment them in separate risk categories and charge accordingly. So today with auto finance. Often the borrowers will win pre-approved credit to buy the vehicle of their choice, up to a set limit. In the case of subprime risks, they will be assigned higher interest rates and/or fees, and the lender may require a fairly large down payment as a percentage of the total value of the vehicle. Once the borrower has demonstrated responsible credit behavior and repaid enough to build up equity in the vehicle equal to the resale value of the vehicle at the wholesale level, some lenders are willing to switch the borrower at that point to more conventional financing. In a further refinement of the credit scoring technique, some lenders have a tiered pricing arrangement, in which different scores are assigned for different term lengths of loans. Inevitably, a certain proportion of sub-prime borrowers may have trouble meeting their payments. This is no cause for panic: experience shows that most are anxious to be responsible; knowledgeable lenders train their employees to look for the cause of delinquency and try for some remedy, rather than immediately resort to repossession-if two conditions are met: (a) The scoring techniques have screened out the obvious deadbeats who have no intention of repaying; (b) The lender is willing to work with the borrower; then the chances are that the credit will remain in good standing. Historically the non-prime market has been the favored preserve of finance companies, especially local or regional ones, although some national ones are also active. Banks have occasionally dipped a toe in these waters, and those with separate consumer finance affiliates have sometimes been players. A news story last year highlighted the fact that the number of banks in one large city that offer subprime auto lending went from one to four. A recent business magazine article highlighted the story of a large Texas bank which went insolvent, then was reorganized, and took on a successful new life as a finance company specializing in sub-prime lending. As more and more lenders assess the demographics and analyze the risk characte