This is not a complaint, rather some additional info on the updates I’ve seen on the sight the last few days about what’s happening in the Consumer Finance offices (HFC/Bene) as of late.
FYI: I’m a (redacted) yr employee, hired at (redacted) just prior to the Household buyout.
AIB (autos in branches) is gone. When it was rolled out to the consumer finance branch network in 04′, it’s sole purpose was not to earn money. It WAS designed as a way to steer or hook a customer who was too credit worthy to take a high rate personal loan, get their key demographic info, (application) and push into a high rate subprime real estate secured loan.
It’s gone now because we are doing nearly -0- real estate secured lending. In fact, in the Western Region, the word is average per BRANCH production was .67 real estate loans per office in Q4. That’s about .33 loans per Account Executive. Compare that to 2.2 loans per AE in 2006 in the same region.
The company cannot sustain a break even or even loosing auto refi program with no conversion rate to offset it with large high fee/high rate loans.
As to the general atmosphere
People are freaking out. Our stock, which most managers or execs are heavily invested in is down 50+%. Bonuses are at their lowest levels since I started 11 years go. Morale is terrible. Branch managers are dropping like flies and few have confidence this business is going to be here at the end of 2009. If it is, it’s generally believed it will be made up of large centralized operations.
The smartest folks left to seek better opportunities. Branch manager vacancies are at record levels and many are being ‘relief’ managed by people completely unqualified to meet the compliance and regulatory issues facing the business, let alone the sales and production requirements.
Those left here are the super koolaid drinking DSMs, BSMs, and clearly the very vested DGMS along with some HR folks. Most people I talk to, like me, are already very engaged on an exit strategy.
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