LOS ANGELES — Westlake Financial Services recently announced its expansion into a new state — the Louisiana market. This brings Westlake's operations to a total of 36 states. Contracts for Louisiana will be accepted starting April 20. Geoff Branda, vice president of IT ... [Read More]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The average interest rate on new-vehicle loans at auto finance companies hit an all-time low of 3.17 percent, according to the Federal Reserve this week. As a comparison, unless the latest preliminary statistic is a Federal Reserve typo, ... [Read More]

IRVINE, Calif. — During the fourth quarter of 2008, Consumer Portfolio Services reported it purchased $7.3 million of contracts from dealers, compared with $33.6 million during the third quarter and $265.8 million during the fourth quarter of 2007. Overall for the year, ... [Read More]

BATON ROUGE, La. — AppOne, a part of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, announced that it has added the first credit union on its credit union platform. Joining this platform is Dow Louisiana Federal Credit Union. Using the AppOne platform, DLFCU is ... [Read More]

NEW YORK — In a bit of positive news, DBRS announced it has upgraded three classes from two auto asset-backed securities transactions. These include: —$4,705,917 Goldman Sachs Auto Loan Trust 2005-1, Class B from AA to AA (high) —$2,449,479 Goldman Sachs ... [Read More]

DEARBORN, Mich. — On Monday, Ford announced that its debt restructuring initiatives will reduce its debt by about $9.9 billion from $25.8 billion. Moreover, the company said this will lower Ford's annual cash interest expense by more than $500 million, which ... [Read More]

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas — Triad Financial recently announced that it has named a new executive to oversee the company's third-party servicing efforts. Taking on this position is Stephen Smith. In his role as director of portfolio servicing, he will manage ... [Read More]

MINNEAPOLIS — FICO recently announced the release of its newest scores, which are targeted specifically for the auto lending and bankcard industries. Credit reporting agency TransUnion is making the scores available to lenders and issuers under the names FICO Risk Score, Classic ... [Read More]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — March consumer bankruptcy filings came close to doubling those of the same time frame a year ago, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, which relies on data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center. More specifically, U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings ... [Read More]

IRVINE, Calif. — Kia Motors America announced today that it has successfully closed a $305 million revolving credit line with a group of leading U.S.-based financial institutions. Of the funding group, Wells Fargo Foothill, a part of Wells Fargo & Co., ... [Read More]