Data specialist Lightstone Auto’s Live app promises to cut down on human error, improve efficiency and reduce fraud when it comes to new and used vehicle transactions.

The mobile app operates as a scanning solu- tion, providing all kinds of information to vehicle dealers, banks and insurers, with the process as easy as staff using their mobile phones to scan the bar codes on vehicle licence discs and driver’s licences.

Lightstone Auto is a member of the Halls Technologies group, which also owns RGT Smart, the company which compiles South Africa’s monthly new-vehicle sales statistics. Halls Technologies can trace its origins to the 1800s and the agriculture sector in Mpuma-langa, says Lightstone Auto MD Royden Volans.

Volans says the Halls group was alerted to many inaccuracies in new- and used-vehicle transactions around 18 months ago, which prompted the development of the Live app, the refinement and roll-out of which will now reside within the newly formed Lightstone Auto company.

When the Live app is used to scan a vehicle licence disc barcode, it returns information from various sources, such as banks, the vehicle manufacturer and the South African Police Service (SAPS), and also cross-checks this information with a number of sources.

It provides information such as make, model, colour, registration number, engine number, vehicle identification number, whether the vehicle is accident free, torque, acceler-ation, engine size, warranty start date, the bank where it was financed, accident repair history, whether SAPS has an interest in the vehicle, the estimated retail value if that vehicle were on the showroom floor today, and the transaction value of the last five deals country-wide on similar vehicles.

Scanning the potential buyer’s driver’s licence provides information of a more personal nature.

This process serves largely to prevent fraud, notes Volans.

This iteration of the app provides informa-tion such as age and identity number, as well as a photo identity which should match the photo on the driver’s licence. If not, the licence could have been tampered with and another photo inserted, for example.

A further iteration of this driver’s licence app, currently under development, will allow for a wider range of information to become available, should the customer provide consent through an on-screen signature on a mobile device.

Should this happen, the app will provide information such as address, phone numbers, credit rating and affluence status.

Volans says the app targets the car and bakkie market, and can be used on Android and Apple devices.

A consumer version of the app is currently being developed, but there is no timeframe available for its introduction.

Lightstone Auto earns its money through the use of the app, with each transaction carrying a small price tag.

A secondary benefit of the app has been the gathering of demographic and geographic data on South Africa’s car-buying public.

Volans says Lightstone Auto can now deter-mine which type of customer shops for what type of car in which corner of the country. It can also trace salesperson activity.

He adds that there are 150 000 applications for new and used vehicle finance in South Africa a month, with many customers looking at more than one vehicle before applying for finance.

This leaves Lightstone Auto with quite a market for its new app.