NEW YORK -

Chase Auto Finance appointed a new chief executive officer today, succeeding Marc Sheinbaum who has asked to pursue other opportunities.

Moving into the role is Thasunda Brown Duckett who previously was part of Chase's consumer and community banking division. Duckett also served as national retail sales executive for Chase's Mortgage Banking division.

"Thasunda has an outstanding record of success in Mortgage Banking, and has many strengths as a leader," said Gordon Smith, CEO of Chase's community and consumer banking. "Her strategic thinking and her business discipline make her uniquely qualified for this new role."

Smith also noted Duckett's new role also includes oversight of Chase's student lending business.

Prior to serving in her role in mortgage banking, Duckett led the company's East Region mortgage sales team for three years. She previously was channel executive of bank branch integration and director of affordable lending and emerging markets.

Duckett joined Chase from Fannie Mae in 2004.

Duckett comes into the job as Chase Auto Finance finished 2012 with a double-digit climb in originations despite a bit of a dip as the year closed.

The company reported originations jumped by 11 percent to $23.4 billion, up from the $21.0 billion Chase generated in 2011.

Chase originated $5.5 billion in auto loans during the fourth quarter, an amount 12 percent above the year-ago figure of $4.9 billion. However, the company originated $6.3 billion in the third quarter so Chase did finish 2012 with a 13-percent quarter-over-quarter decline.

As the result of its origination activity, Chase said its average amount of auto loans on the books settled at $49.3 billion at the end of the fourth quarter, up 5 percent from the prior year and 2 percent from the prior quarter.

Delving deeper into fourth quarter auto loan portfolio data, Chase said its net charge-off rate was 0.36 percent in the fourth quarter and 0.39 percent for the year. The rate dropped significantly quarter-over-quarter, but company officials explained in their previous financial report why the third-quarter rate spiked to 0.74 percent.

"Regulatory guidance requiring loans discharged under Chapter 7 bankruptcy and not reaffirmed by the borrower to be charged off to their collateral value, regardless of their delinquency status, resulted in an incremental $55 million of net charge-offs," they said

"Excluding these incremental charge-offs, auto net charge-offs would have been $35 million for the quarter, and the net charge-off rate would have been 0.29 percent," Chase added.

Returning back to fourth-quarter information, Chase's 30-day delinquency rate moved up to 1.25 percent, the level it finished at for the year. The company indicated the rate was 1.11 percent in the third quarter after being below 1 percent during each of the first two quarters of 2012.

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