FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — RouteOne recently announced that Bank of America is now participating on its eContracting platform. Moreover, the company has launched the first phase of its integration with Aimbridge Lending Solutions so that dealers can now send credit applications for this institution.

As for the Bank of America announcement, the company pointed out that Bank of America is ranked within the top 10 auto finance lending institutions nationally, and is the first non-captive lender to participate on the RouteOne eContracting platform.

Current captive participants include Ford Motor Credit, Chrysler Financial and Toyota Financial Services.

Bank of America is rolling the eContracting solution out to select dealers in Texas and Florida, and will expand its rollout to additional dealers in 2009.

RouteOne's unique eContracting capability delivers many value and efficiency features and benefits and will enable the creation, execution, storage, and management of motor vehicle finance agreements and ancillary documents, officials noted.

The solution will also provide an imaging capability, eliminating the need for related paper documents to be sent separately from the eContract package and streamlining the vehicle financing process, they added.

"We are pleased to welcome Bank of America as the first non-captive finance source to participate on our eContracting platform. They have always been a great supporter of RouteOne and are continuing their tradition of industry leadership. They were also the first independent finance source to integrate with our credit application management system," said Mike Jurecki, RouteOne chief executive officer.

"We look forward to working with Bank of America and our shared dealer customers to recognize the many benefits of eContracting, which include reduced chargebacks and faster funding," he continued.

Meanwhile, Deborah Nunnally, senior vice president of credit and operations fulfillment for Dealer Financial Services at Bank of America, added, "We are excited about this opportunity to leverage RouteOne's innovation and technology expertise to meet the preferred delivery needs of our clients.

"As a leading provider of financial solutions for auto dealers, we are committed to providing client solutions that promote efficiencies as well as ease of doing business. eContracting provides us with one more opportunity to surpass our clients' expectations," she said.

Aimbridge Integration

In other recent news, RouteOne also announced that it has launched the first phase of integration with Aimbridge Lending Solutions, a Colorado-based credit union aggregation service supporting credit unions nationwide.

The integration will allow RouteOne dealer customers to send and receive credit applications to those credit unions served by Aimbridge, a provider of lending technology and premium services to credit unions throughout the United States.

Integration with RouteOne will be completed in two phases to cover the majority of Aimbridge's markets nationwide, according to officials.

The first phase includes integration with dealers in Colorado, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio to select credit unions in these markets. The second phase of integration will provide access to additional markets, and is planned for launch by the end of the second quarter of this year.

"The integration to the Aimbridge network provides our dealer customers a wider variety of funding options and, at the same time, allows RouteOne to assist Aimbridge in growing its automotive business," said Jurecki.

"In this challenging economy, we are pleased to offer our dealers even more financing options on the RouteOne platform," he added.

Stephen Bentley, founder of Aimbridge, said, "Automotive loans have always been an integral source of revenue for the credit union industry, and Aimbridge is committed to helping credit unions maximize their business in the auto loan segment. Our strategic partnership with RouteOne will help our credit union clients increase their loan opportunities while maintaining a high capture ratio. It is a win-win situation."