Nedbank expands its Avo app to include end-to-end digital vehicle shopping 

22nd October 2021

By: Irma Venter

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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Nedbank is promising prospective car buyers a “complete end-to-end digital vehicle shopping experience, saving them vast amounts of time and energy, through the new Avo virtual vehicle-mall feature”.

“While there are already quite a few websites and aggregators where people can browse vehicles, the existing options are still very limited,” says Nedbank Avo executive Julie Vetter.

“While these online portals are offered to a client to shop for a car, the Avo platform is a rich environment that allows for real-time engagement between buyers and sellers, while also facilitating completely secure payments.”

The Avo app, by Nedbank, was launched in May last year. The new auto portal links to this app with one click and opens a desktop environment for ease of use.

The pilot launch of the auto portal took place in July.

Avo itself was launched earlier during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the aim “to bring consumers and businesses together, matching consumers’ lifestyle needs to product and service offerings with safe, mobile payments, backed by bank-grade security, all on one convenient platform”.

This means that consumers and businesses can manage their daily lives through an expanding array of products and services in the Avo ecosystem.

In the year since its launch, Avo has gained more than 250 000 consumers and 20 000 merchants.

The auto category is one of the latest additions to the app. It provides a virtual sales forum where users can ask, and get answers to, questions about vehicles using the chat function, send documents and make video calls, all within the platform.

Consumers can also apply and be approved for financing using the Nedbank MFC car finance interface, “completing an end-to-end buying journey digitally”, promises Nedbank.

“This alleviates the burden on the buyer to source the best financing deal from a bank-approved dealer, while also allowing these approved dealers to benefit from a deal introduced by Avo.”

In time, the auto platform “will have ground-breaking features that will allow users to conduct affordability and credit checks upfront, while it will also exponentially increase the chances of an approved deal flowing back to the dealer”, says Vetter.

“This is important, as it prevents a dealer from being inundated with potentially fruitless leads.”

Avo will have more than 80 MFC-approved dealers on board by the end of this year, with a total of 2 500 vehicles.

Over the next three years, the platform is targeting more than 1 000 dealers around the country.

“Having the entire process on a single platform is truly game changing,” says Vetter.

“Previously, a consumer would have to repeat the same process with multiple stakeholders, from different dealerships to financial service providers, which takes up a lot of time.

“Now, you can explore as many vehicles as you want, submit your application, and start driving your new car in a matter of days.”

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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