LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. — DealerTrack announced Wednesday that it has developed and implemented a new interface linking dealers with credit unions served by Aimbridge Lending Solutions, which is a provider of lending technology and premium services to credit unions throughout the country.

The relationship will combine DealerTrack's extensive network of more than 22,000 dealers nationally with Aimbridge's proprietary credit union filtering process.

Dealerships can use DealerTrack to make an automated request to Aimbridge's lending system to determine whether an applicant is pre-approved at any credit union, is already a credit union member or fits any of the other various filters the Aimbridge system supports.

Next, dealers can then select an appropriate credit union and submit the loan application to Aimbridge, where it is processed through its integrated lending workflow system on behalf of the lending credit union.

Basically, by leveraging the integrated technology, credit unions can increase auto loan leads while maintaining attractive loan capture ratios, officials highlighted.

"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 sector," said Stephen Bentley, founder of Aimbridge.

"Our strategic partnership with DealerTrack will help our credit union clients increase their loan opportunities while maintaining a high capture ratio — it is a win-win situation," he continued.

David Trinder, senior vice president of network solutions at DealerTrack, added, "We are pleased to welcome Aimbridge to the DealerTrack network. It is important to us that we enable dealers to deliver all possible financing options to their customers. The addition of Aimbridge and their technology greatly adds to the options dealers can offer."

Trinder continued, "Historically, DealerTrack has counted each service provider such as Aimbridge as only one finance source, since their affiliated finance sources are accessed through easy-to-use drop-down lists on DealerTrack. However, in order to measure by the same counting standards of others in the industry, we are now including Aimbridge's available affiliated finance sources.

"In addition, we have existing relationships with other service providers through which DealerTrack connects to multiple finance sources. With this change in methodology, as well as the signing of additional individual lenders, the total number of finance sources on DealerTrack as of June 30 is 659. Under our old method of counting the number would have been 533," he concluded.