ATLANTA — VW Credit Inc. (VCI), the captive finance partner of Volkswagen, Audi and Ducati in the United States, announced it has reached one million vehicle finance agreements under contract. The milestone contract was for a lease of a Volkswagen Jetta by co-applicants Linda Gaines (Mother) and Kyla Gaines (Daughter) from the Jim Ellis Dealership in Chamblee, Ga. 

Christian Dahlheim, executive vice president and CFO of VW Credit Inc., along with local guests and dignitaries, gathered at the Jim Ellis Volkswagen Dealership in Kennesaw, to celebrate the occasion. As a special gift, VCI agreed to cover 12 payments on the 36-month lease.

“Today’s milestone — one million customer accounts — is another example of VCI’s ability to support brands of the Volkswagen Group growth strategy by providing attractive financing solutions and superior service for our customers,” said Andrew Stuart, president and CEO of VW Credit Inc.

“We were excited to learn that the 1 millionth customer account came as a Volkswagen Credit customer through our doors,” said Jimmy Ellis, vice president and COO of the Jim Ellis Automotive Group. “We opened our first Volkswagen dealership in 1971 and now have 3 locations serving Georgia.  We couldn’t be more pleased.”

In addition of celebrating one million customer accounts, VCI officially launched FinanceSource, a new integrated solution for credit and contract approvals, funding, and digital document storage. This system will help dealers to further reduce wait time for customers, eliminate the risk of missing documents and accelerate cash flow for the dealers, according to the company.

“The feedback by the dealers so far has been very positive in terms of accuracy, ease of use, and speed,” Dahlheim added.

In the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Consumer Financing Satisfaction Study, Volkswagen customers rated VCI No. 1 in the retail loan segment. “We are proud of those results; it tells us we are already doing something right in the eyes of our customers,” Dahlheim said. 

In 2012, VCI saw an increase of 28.3 percent in all-new contracts, with 404,947 contracts signed. VCI increased the number of new contracts to 238,400 in the first seven months of 2013. The number of total assets during the business year also rose by 14 percent to a record level of $23.6 billion. To support this growth, VCI recently announced the creation of up to 150 new jobs over the next five years at its service center in Libertyville, Ill.