Odessa Launches Originations Platform, Plans Auto Finance Suite

Equipment finance company Odessa has entered the auto industry.

The company has launched an originations platform called Odessa Auto and plans to grow it into a full-service end-to-end auto finance suite, Odessa said in a Wednesday (April 24) press release.

“Odessa’s deep asset finance experience enables the company to offer state-of-the-art auto origination technology on Day 1,” Robert Johnson, executive vice president of auto finance at Odessa, said in the release. “Moreover, the easily configurable platform enables lenders of all sizes to meet their origination needs without custom development.”

Beginning with originations, Odessa Auto will add tools designed to be flexible and agile and help users capitalize on market shifts, according to the release.

The company’s multi-asset, multi-product platform builds on Odessa’s experience in equipment leasing, the release said. It supports not only traditional auto finance but also usage-based lending, subscriptions, fleet, as a service, fractional ownership and other alternative lending structures.

“Powered by an open API framework, process automation and no-code architecture, Odessa Auto puts control of the platform right where it should be: in the hands of its clients,” Odessa CEO Eric Bernstein said in the release. “We’re pleased to bring these capabilities to auto finance just as the market has begun to demand this level of data intelligence and asset-based functionality.”

In another recent development in this space, CarGurus said in January that Chase joined its multilender financing platform that already included Capital One, Global Lending Services and Westlake Financial.

The addition of Chase as a participating lender on the online automotive platform expands the options for consumers looking to prequalify for auto financing online, CarGurus said at the time.

In December, Sopra Banking Software (SBS) and Vero Technologies joined forces to bring digital, wholesale auto financing capabilities to local and regional U.S. banks, credit unions and specialized finance companies.

This partnership aims to address the challenges faced by smaller community financial institutions in the wholesale financing industry, the companies said at the time. It brings together SBS’s Sopra Financing Platform, which powers lenders’ back-office wholesale financing operations, and Vero’s digital front-end platform, which includes services such as application underwriting and loan portfolio management.