TEXT OF STORY

Bill Radke: Just a year ago, the Obama administration said Chrysler wouldn’t survive
without a bailout of cash. Now, though, more people are buying cars. And Chrysler Financial’s beginning to make money on loan payments. Marketplace’s Alisa Roth reports.

Alisa Roth: Chrysler Financial says it never really got out of the loan business. But it hasn’t been Chrysler auto’s main lender for awhile, and now it says it’s looking at originating more loans.

Bill Visnic is senior editor at Edmunds Auto Observer. He says with banks tightening their standards, there are certainly plenty of opportunities for other lenders:

Bill Visnic: You know, what you’re seeing is a lot of these companies and the lenders starting to look at what’s going on in this very sort of dynamic environment and say, wow, there are some openings for us here.

The new regulatory environment may be helping too. John Pottow is a law professor at the University of Michigan. He says consumers may never have such easy access to credit from traditional sources again. Which is all the more reason to get into the lending business.

John Pottow: People are buying cars again. And there is still money to be made and sales to be enhanced by having auto lending.

Car loans tend to be safer than other kinds of consumer loans, because people are so dependent on their vehicles, they’ll make car payments. Even if they can’t pay off other bills.

Im Alisa Roth for Marketplace.