Pentagon Motor Group will be offering customers the ability to check whether they will be approved for finance on its stock after signing up to iVendi’s Car Finance Checker.

The company holds franchises for Vauxhall, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Citroen, Fiat, Jeep, Nissan, Peugeot and Seat across more than a dozen locations in Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire.

James Reeve, marketing director at Pentagon, said: “We have a very proactive attitude towards web marketing and are constantly on the lookout for new best practice ideas that will make our online activity more effective.

“Car Finance Checker is a very interesting development and our initial experiences have been very positive. It converts visitors to our web site into highly qualified leads and then customers.

“Some interesting patterns are starting to emerge. For example, quite a number of the finance checks made by customers are outside of our normal opening times, making the web site more productive out of hours.”

Reeve said the number of website visitors using the new system had been split equally between new and used car customers.

He said: “This is something of a pleasant surprise because we initially saw it primarily as a used car product.”

The system is integrated into Pentagon’s website and lets customers check their eligibility for credit with the dealer’s panel of lenders. It can suggest suitable stock in Pentagon’s inventory if a customer is likely to be declined on a particular model or set of financial parameters.

iVendi director Richard Tavernor said the company is currently in the process of signing “several” other franchised dealers to use Car Finance Checker.