Dealers now have the chance to offer retail buyers an individual finance package before they enter showrooms, says James Tew, managing director of Codeweavers.

“It’s the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail,” says Tew, who believes it is the sort of idea needed to help dealers win back finance business lost to high-street and direct lenders.

YourCarLoan is shaped around the customer and the car they are seeking to buy, generating sales and finance “while the dealership sleeps”, says Tew.

Codeweavers has invested £1m to launch YourCarLoan, which can be embedded into dealers’ websites to offer tailored HP, loan, lease purchase and PCP products to potential customers.

“We are now in negotiations with all the major UK motor finance companies so that we can offer their products via this service,” says Tew.

Codeweavers worked with industry web supplier Auto Exposure, which says it supplies more than 1,500 dealerships, to develop the programme.

YourCarLoan offers multiple finance products to potential customers through the dealer’s web-site and “has the capacity to flex to meet individual dealer requirements”.

Tew calls it a quantum leap designed to make it easier for potential car buyers to buy a car and their finance.

“The dealer can flex their offer right down to individual car level,” says Tew. “If they want to make a specific offer to move a slow-moving car, or to create an eye-catching marketing headline offer, they can. Everything is in their direct control.”

Research by the Finance and Leasing Association shows that 60% of consumers select a finance source before choosing a car.

A similar proportion use the internet to research their car and dealer choice (up from 20% in 2002).

Tew says: “The positioning of the showroom as the key source of finance information is increasingly unsustainable.

“While point-of-sale finance continues to fall, the wider personal finance market has enjoyed significant growth.”

He says the YourCarLoan software matches trends in consumer-buying behaviours while ensuring dealers can remain at the heart of the process.

“Car buying is an emotive process and YourCarLoan will show customers how affordable it can be through their chosen dealership. It will underwrite their purchase at the click of a mouse.”