In today’s economic environment, it is safe to say that consumers want to trim their expenses as much as they can. One way to do this is to refinance your auto loan, if you have one. There are a variety of ways to refinance an auto loan, ranging from getting loans through traditional brick and mortar banks to online lenders. One such web site that has gained a great deal of attention is MoneyAisle. This website recently expanded its service offerings to include bids on auto refinance loans and car loans in addition to CDs and savings accounts. According to the website, refinancing an auto loan through MoneyAisle can save a consumer up to $1,000 a year.
The huge savings is a result of what MoneyAisle calls it extensive network of local and national credit unions and banks that compete live against one another to give the consumer the best rate, even better than if the consumer approached the lender directly – this is a MoneyAisle guarantee. According to the founder of the site, Mukesh Chatter, unlike LendingTree, a similar site, MoneyAisle is completely automated, and applicants “have a choice to pick an institution or decline them all without having to receive aggressive broker/lender calls.”
The process involved in using MoneyAisle’s website is seamless in part because of the way the website has been set up and due to the innovative technology implemented. Only seven unique fields are required and before you know it, you have a variety of car loans to choose from, all of which are exclusive to MoneyAisle. The benefits of using this service entail time savings as the consumer is saved the burden of shopping around for a car loan. In addition, you don’t have a perfect credit score. MoneyAisle does not discriminate.
Just to see if the process was as easy as the site claimed, I created a hypothetical scenario in which I was looking for an auto loan refinancing for a 2010 Toyota 4-Runner with 25,000 miles. I also assumed I had $15,000 to refinance and was making a current monthly payment of $375 and I have a good credit score between 660-699. That was it; that was all that was required to start receiving bids. A screen shot of the bidding process is shown below.
In what appeared to be less than 10 seconds, 5 bids were displayed broken down by duration. Not bad for a few moments of time. Although this was the last stop on our investigative journey, Mr. Chatter stated that if a consumer likes a bank or credit union’s bid, he/she may apply for the loan assuming the information provided was correct and the institutions would honor the offer.
The website provides several videos illustrating the cost savings that can be realized by the consumer using MoneyAisle. In fact, one video illustrates the drastic difference in rates between MoneyAisle and Yahoo for a car loan with the same characteristics; MoneyAisle returns a low rate of 5% while Yahoo produces a bid of 12%. There is also a “how to” video which walks potential users through the auto loan aspect of the site. Unfortunately, the service is still limited to cover certain zip codes (approximately about half the country). If you are not one of the lucky ones, you certainly have something to look forward to.
Published or updated May 5, 2011.
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