#AutoFinance

Colossal rental car provider Hertz is on the hunt for life-sustaining cash, but raising it itself now seems out of the question. Hertz Global Holdings, which filed for bankruptcy in May, recently moved ahead with a plan to raise a cool half-billion through a stock sale, only for the Securities and Exchange Commission to step in and say “hey, whoa, no more of that.”

Left with no other option, Hertz is now seeking a bankruptcy loan.

Every now and then, life takes you by surprise. One minute you’re hanging out with your buddies, deploying the 225 horsepower of a tattered Mustang GT to do donuts in the parking lot of the Muddy Shag Lounge. The next, you’re weighing the benefits of a variable rate mortgage.

It’s an alarming reminder of age, not unlike the sudden predilection of my knees to sound like nails in a Cuisinart when I attempt to alight from my sofa after watching the Pittsburgh Penguins get shellacked by the Chicago Blackhawks.

One such life event snuck up on me a couple of weeks ago: I finally kept a car long enough to pay it off.

Though CarMax’s lending arm will press forward with its subprime lending test program, it won’t be a major player in the subprime game.

Wells Fargo will rein in its subprime lending business, limiting subprime car loans to 10 percent of auto loans it originates. According to the New York Times, the move comes amid concerns that the market for subprime car loans is expanding too quickly.

A trade group representing lenders is finding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal to regulate non-bank auto lenders too much to bear.

Red-hot auto sales and increasingly pricey cars are generally seen as a sign of a resurgent economy and a consumer base that is finally prospering after years of stagnant wages and poor prospects. But according to data from Experian, much of the growth may come from practices generally regarded as financially unhealthy.

According to National Automobile Dealers Association chair Forrest McConnell, the United States government’s plan to tighten automotive finance regulations amounts to an attempt by said government “to take away the consumer’s right to get a discount.”

The latest Q2 2014 data from Experian was released this week, and key metrics like repossessions, loan delinquencies and outstanding balances have all seen increases.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a government entity that regulates and supervises banks, is sounding the alarm regarding risks related to auto loans.

The three year lease.

It entrances and traps the most spellbound car aficionados into a monthly payment that keeps them at the altar of the car payment.

Is that a bad thing? Well, depends on the way you want to look at it. What can’t be argued is that both sides get what they want, and after three years, that customer can choose to stay with the manufacturer or go somewhere else. To me at least, that seems like a fair bargain.

But what if the automaker could offer a better deal? For both parties?

Your personal information is valuable.

When I liquidated vehicles for Capital One, we typically examined over 14,000 variables before lending out our money to a customer.

Any customer. A credit card. An automobile. A commercial loan. It didn’t matter. We needed to get to know the economics of you first.

All of the low rates and big profits were dependent on buying your personal information, and then crafting decision models and metrics to determine your personal risk.

Our success in auto finance generated low rates for our customers and low delinquencies for our investors. But they both could have been far lower.