For those of you who are not familiar with Toyota Financial Services, it is a branded subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp., and a licensed business in Nevada (Toyota Motor Credit Corp). It would require some time to research whether their status is chartered as an Industrial Loan Company, giving it the ability to take deposits and offer banking services, but we expect that is the case. In this article, appearing in American Banker, the new CIO of the company explains the going forward strategy.
‘We are at the intersection of two industries that are being disrupted. We are seeing the reshaping of the financial services industry and the automotive industry. It’s double the fun and a significant opportunity for us.
Toyota is a mobility company, and we are a mobility financial services company. In addition to selling cars, we are also focused on new mobility services, which is all about enabling the freedom of movement from point A to point B.
In addition to auto lending, we also have leasing, insurance, protection plans and we also own an FDIC-insured bank, called Toyota Financial Services Savings Bank in Nevada. Through the bank, we provide financial services and financing to our dealers.’
The piece goes on to discuss the extension of services to various affiliates through an ecosystem that connects the car, data and financial services. The plan would include consumer services as well, which is beyond the current banking services offered to dealers.
‘We are building an integrated digital ecosystem from the ground up in the cloud, since we have Toyota affiliates across the world, including fintech partners and suppliers. We will build our own API library that will be available internally and selectively externally.’
This seems to us as a logical and interesting approach as we move into the next decade.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
