Retail mortgage lender Rate is expanding into auto lending, making car loans available with ongoing upgrades to its mobile app as it looks to offer different types of products. 

Thanks to an agreement with Westlake Financial, Chicago-based Rate will make vehicle lending available directly within its app, allowing for streamlined processing and opportunities for car buyers to explore loan options before heading to a dealer.  

Rate Auto Loans is the latest rollout intended to turn the company's consumer-facing app into a centralized portal to support household financial planning beyond the mortgage transaction, the lender said. 

"We're not just adding an auto financing option to the Rate app. We're strengthening our overall lending platform so customers have access to clear, straightforward loan options that put them in control," CEO Victor Ciardelli said in a press release.

"The way to optimally serve our customers is through providing 100% transparency and empowering them to make informed decisions," he also noted. 

Evolution of the Rate app

Auto financing is the latest addition to the Rate app, which launched in late 2023. At the time of its introduction, the company, which was then known as Guaranteed Rate, opted to include features that extended beyond finance-related topics to other guidance in an effort to help alleviate everyday household stress. Among the content available on the app are health and wellness articles from Dr. Deepak Chopra.

"When people understand their finances, they move forward with confidence and better state of wellbeing," Ciardelli said. 

After initial launch, Rate made enhancements to the tool with financial planning features and more than 1,300 wellness articles added to its mortgage management and home search capabilities. The app also includes links to partners for other products, such as insurance, offered through the company's affiliated marketplace. 

Lenders continue to look into product diversification and new business opportunities with mortgage originations still below their record peaks in the boom years at the start of this decade. The addition of auto lending follows Rate's prior expansion into new financial products outside of mortgages, such as personal loans and home equity lines of credit, both of which were introduced in 2022.

Other mortgage lenders, similarly, are embarking on new ventures as they attempt to engage and maintain relationships with customers outside the borrowing table, often through business partnerships. In the past year, both Fairway Home Mortgage and New American Funding announced new insurance affiliates in an effort to broaden the scope of their operations. 

Other strategies Rate has recently taken to attract new potential customers include the acceptance of cryptocurrencies as verifiable assets for mortgage eligibility. Earlier this year, both Rate and Newrez announced they would allow consideration of digital currencies in mortgage underwriting.