Volkswagen Pon Financial Services NL is a joint venture between Volkswagen Financial Services and Pon Holdings BV in the Netherlands, and currently manages around 45,000 active retail finance contracts, both private customers and SMEs, and 75,000 fleet contracts.

The business wanted to introduce process efficiencies and improve authorization and approval times for its end users. At the same time, it also wanted to enhance the customer experience and improve its own customer satisfaction scores.

Volkswagen Pon Financial Services turned to global software provider Sofico and its Miles system based on a long-standing business relationship and began an implementation project, code-named ‘FIRE’ (Finance Insurance Retail), initially for the retail portfolio of its third party, white label proposition, Autocash.

The system went live at the end of November 2015. Due to its success, Volkswagen Pon Financial Services now plans to roll out the Miles system to its other brands and their dealers, in conjunction with a new insurance product by the end of September.

Marc Overgoor, director of operations at Volkswagen Pon Financial Services, said: “Miles has enabled us to do more business with the same number of people, and we now have the Miles system fully integrated with no need for manual intervention whatsoever.

“This has improved our authorisation and approval times. We now have straight-through processing with no or little manual intervention required.

“The automation of the credit scoring process through Miles means we can go back to the intermediary, such as the broker, far more quickly and close more deals as a result. All applications are handled completely digitally with automated and authorized workflows.

“The initial phase of the project has been a resounding success. We already believed in Miles as a fleet product but now we have proved categorically that it can be a perfect retail product as well.”

Gémar Hompes, Sofico managing director, added: “Obviously, we are delighted to add Volkswagen Pon Financial Services to the growing international customer base for Miles, which is now responsible for the management of more than 1.25m vehicle contracts in 18 countries around the world.

“We believe Miles offers a unique solution in managing a mixed retail/fleet portfolio, and as such it perfectly meets the needs of Volkswagen Pon Financial Services and its customers.

“Following the success of the project in the Netherlands, we fully expect the roll out of Miles across other parts of the international organisation with the ultimate harmonisation of systems on both the retail and fleet sides of the Volkswagen business,” he said.