GAINESVILLE, GA – National Auto Research, commonly known within the automotive and finance industries as Black Book (after its flagship publication), developed a revolutionary new software tool called ValuEngine that utilizes cloud computing and Microsoft’s One Click technology to enable lenders to automatically update the values of their entire vehicle portfolio on a daily basis. This allows lenders to monitor their portfolio in real time and take any actions necessary to keep their portfolio profitable.

Currently, in the United States alone, there are more than ten thousand lenders and sixty thousand automobile dealers evaluating vehicle values for the purpose of buying and selling cars, providing trade-in values, and, for the lenders, making critical decisions throughout the lifecycle of their customers’ account. The vast majority of these transactions are done one at a time on a vehicle by vehicle basis.

The key difference of ValuEngine that makes it such a breakthrough is its ability to capture raw data for any number of records from almost any source and convert it to a standard format. The data can then be blended with Black Book’s vehicle valuation data and easily manipulated, analyzed, and acted upon.

Tom Cross, president of Black Book, commented: “Banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions have always monitored the health of their portfolios, but the dramatic changes within the lending industry over the last several years have necessitated a much more comprehensive, real time approach.

With ValuEngine, lenders get a better understanding of what is actually on their books and indications about future performance This enables them to make better decisions throughout the loan process, including underwriting, account management, collections, and remarketing.”

Cross continued: “For example, they might see that they tend to over lend in a certain vehicle segment and are exposed to too much risk, or conversely may see that they are too conservative in other segments, thus missing out on profitable business. In either case, ValuEngine processing allows them to make profit maximizing changes to their strategy on the fly. In essence, it helps financial institutions make critical lending decisions in a timely and accurate manner.”

Black Book’s ValuEngine will be unveiled and demonstrated to the lender community beginning October 12th at the Auto Finance Summit in Las Vegas.