YouX, which says it has already has signed up more than 400 dealerships and is now targeting OEMs, has online and in-dealership products tailored for car-buyers, OEMs, dealers and lenders.

YouX CEO and co-founder Simon Penhaligon told GoAutoNews Premium that the business was developed with the mission “to increase finance penetration at the point of sale, to improve the quality of leads and enrich finance opportunity data.”

“It delivers pre-approved, lender matched and fully completed finance applications – with supporting documents, directly to business managers for a final check or, directly to the lender for processing.”

Simon Penhaligon

It also offers access by clients to its asset finance and technology experts to train dealership teams, offer finance support and process dealership finance opportunity overflow.

The business said it was working with more than 80 Australian lenders “including 87 per cent of Australia’s OEM branded lenders.”

Access to the YouX suite of products for customers is via online or at participating dealerships and financiers. Dealerships typically use QR codes that, once scanned, launch on the customer’s mobile device. 

The customer can then begin the finance journey or for repeat users, pick-up where they left off and progress an existing application by verifying their identity.

Mr Penhaligon said the YouX product and the app were central to bringing together the dealer and the financier and the consumer. “There are certain demographics that would likely engage with YouX,” he said.

“There are many generations that are buying cars – baby boomers, Gen Xs and millennials among them – but it is the millennial subset that is the largest living generation in human history.

“If we approach a market, let’s approach the biggest market, the total addressable market. So if you look at millennials and their buying behaviours, you note that they spend – on average – 17-plus hours researching online before they make a large consumer purchase. 

“In the case of buying a car, they will research between 6pm and 11pm so traditional ways of serving these customers don’t really apply.

“Of course, you can go to the dealership on a weekend to test drive a car and be served with financial options.“The fundamental change in buyer behaviour for millennials is that they’re making those decisions preemptively. They’re doing it before they’re being put on the spot in the dealership environment. 

“So the customer who is planning on buying a vehicle can be educated and they can be informed well and truly before they even step foot into the dealership so they remove that sales pressure.”

Mr Penhaligon said that the secondary benefit is to the dealership. 

“Up until now, as the prospective buyer is researching the vehicle, the dealership has not been a part of the conversation,” he said.

“They are still doing a lot of great work – advertising the vehicle in the dealership and online, having car reviews, using a fancy website where you can look at the inside of the car on the outside of the car – but they don’t do a great job of offering customers choice and financing options. 

“And so we augment what the dealer is already doing.”

Mr Penhaligon said the beauty of the product was that it could be accessed via the dealer’s website, it can be embedded in the dealership, and at the point of sale face-to-face with the dealership finance team.

“So the customer could still sit down with a business manager or a salesperson and go through the traditional process,” he said.

“But the finance responses would come from not just one lender, but many lenders to give customers choice.

“For the dealership it gives certainty and peace of mind because they know that by the time a customer has been pre-qualified and has the application on the desk, that it’s a customer that they would like to transact with because YouX has run all the checks and balances upfront. 

“For the customer, they know where they stand from day one. They know the rate they will pay, the repayments and they know they can trust the dealership. The process is very transparent. 

“Above all, the customer knows they have the best interest rate available because they’re being served with a multitude of lending options.”

To gather data, YouX uses a range of customer, vehicle and third-party data bureau information, including access to agencies and institutions such as the Australian Taxation Office.

Mr Penhaligon said the process can be very quick – perhaps down to 60 seconds for conditional approval for finance. He said it can save more than an hour on every submitted finance application which he said was a win for customers, business managers and business owners.

By Neil Dowling