LOS ANGELES — Westlake Financial Services announced late last week that it is looking to continue to expand originations through the end of the year and into 2010.

As part of this drive, the company has launched a shared-participation program. It is also now using GPS and payment reminder devices, in addition to purchasing more dealer portfolios, offering lower rates for the most credit-worthy retail customers and ramping up the number of field representatives throughout the country, among other initiatives.

"Quarter three was a great one for Westlake," said Mark Vazquez, vice president of sales. "We grew our dealer base by 20 percent and expanded into six new states, bringing our national footprint to 42 states. We also increased our rep force by 20 percent in the third quarter (to 115) in order to provide dealers with the high level of customer service they have come to expect from us.

"Westlake also made various program enhancements with the goal of increasing its originations for the fourth quarter," he continued. "We've increased our advances and lowered our fees across all programs. We also included new options such as GPS in our ProfitBuilder program, which automatically gives higher advance. Another major change was lowering minimum APR of the Platinum program to 6.99 percent, which many of our franchise dealerships have been asking for."

Other expansions plans included the rollout of a new partner program, which is basically designed as an alternative for buy-here, pay-here customers. It is created to give dealers complete control, officials noted.

The program offers more money up front that the ProfitBuilder program, and it also allows dealers to recover the vehicle in case of customer default and resell the collateral more quickly, executives explained.

Moreover, the company noted that adjustable APRs are another stand-out of the Partner program, where the dealer can choose rates as low as 1 percent, up to state caps, or the 35 percent maximum.

"Our dealers told us that they want more choices and control, and that's what these features and programs are designed to do," said Rich Damschen, assist vice president of business strategy and analytics.

"Our strategic alliances that occurred in the third quarter give large auto groups like AutoNation subprime auto financing that helps their franchise locations book more business," he pointed out.

Finally, the launch of a new instant notification program within the Westlake Buy program can allow dealers to communicate with their local representative in real time if any questions arise while working a deal.

The notification tool is built into the program and sends any questions and related data directly to the representative and buyer. In most cases, this allows the buyers to make adjustments on the fly to maximize the profit for dealers, officials explained.

And in cases where the Buy program does not give approval, the instant notification can be sent and the representative and buyer can instantly analyze where the dealer can make an adjustment to make a deal work, according to Westlake.

"Our new initiatives to expand our footprint and increase our originations are designed to meet our dealers' needs," said Ian Anderson, president of Westlake. "We focus on always giving the dealer a way to go. We've made many of our most popular programs even more attractive, and added new features that make Westlake the most logical choice for any customer that walks onto the lot.

"Focusing on what the dealers want is how we have continued to increase originations during these challenging times and how we plan on increasing originations into 2010," he concluded.