Two years of Lightspeed DMS data show that the lenders on a dealer’s list differ in what they charge and which buyers they sign, and that the youngest buyers are concentrated at a handful of them.
By Lindsay Elkins | Aftermarket Business Dev., Lightspeed DMS
Across the 1,510 U.S. powersports dealerships in this study, the lenders financing their deals turned out to be far from interchangeable. Beyond charging different prices, they sign noticeably different kinds of buyers, and the youngest generation is landing with some of them much more often than with others.
Hundreds of lenders appear on those contracts, but every one of them falls into one of four groups (Figure 1). Independent specialty lenders such as Roadrunner and Sheffield finance the largest share at a little over a third of all deals, while the manufacturers’ own finance arms known as captives account for about a quarter. There are only 10 captives in the data, yet together they finance more deals than every credit union combined. Credit unions and banks divide the rest almost evenly.
On price, the four groups line up in a clear order, from credit unions at the low end to independents at the high end. A buyer pays about $1,400 more in finance charges with an independent than with a credit union on the same $12,000 five-year loan. Banks, which make the biggest loans of the four, come in second-cheapest on that same loan.
Buyers financed through BMW Finance, Huntington National Bank and Harley-Davidson’s Eaglemark Savings Bank average around 46 years old, the oldest among the larger lenders (Figure 2). Aqua Finance, One Main Financial and Yamaha Motor Finance sign the youngest buyers at the opposite end, and Aqua’s buyers are nearly 11 years younger than BMW’s at an average of about 36. Roadrunner Financial is the largest single lender in the data and sits closer to the young end, with buyers about two-and-a-half years younger than the market average.
Outside the credit unions, buyer age tracks the cost of credit, and lenders with younger customers tend to charge higher rates. Some of that comes from the machine rather than the rider, because used units carry higher rates than new ones. Credit unions don’t follow the pattern; their buyers are about as old as the market as a whole, yet they charge the least of any group. Eaglemark goes the other way, pairing older-than-average buyers with higher-than-average rates.
Gen Z already accounts for 1 in 5 financed buyers, and its share grew faster than any other generation’s over the two years. That tilts the overall buyer mix younger, and those buyers pay the most for their money (Figure 3). Gen Z’s typical rate runs nearly 3.5 points above what boomers and older pay, even though Gen Z borrows less, and the gap held in both years.
More than one in four Roadrunner buyers belongs to Gen Z, and at Aqua Finance the share is above 1 in 3, compared with about 1 in 10 at BMW Finance and Huntington. The independents were also the only lender type whose average buyer got younger over the two years, while the captives’ average buyer got older. So when a lender’s average rate looks high, its customer mix may explain as much of it as its pricing does.
Roadrunner gained more share of financed deals over the two years than any other lender (Figure 4). American Honda Finance gave up about as much for the biggest loss of any lender, and the buyers it kept were older on average. Across lender types, the gains went to both ends of the price range. Credit unions at the cheap end and independents at the expensive end both picked up share, while the captives and banks priced in between lost it. The two ends also moved further apart on price, with credit union rates falling on average and independent rates rising.
A dealership that sends most of its deals to one captive has, in effect, tied its approvals to that manufacturer’s programs. A store that leans on the independents is already financing the next generation of buyers, at that generation’s prices. This data can’t tell any one store which approach works better, but it does show that lenders differ in far more than the rate on the contract.
This analysis uses Lightspeed DMS data from U.S. powersports dealerships, covering September 2024 through August 2026 and pulled Oct. 19, 2026. A deal counts as financed when it names a finance company, finances more than $500 and passes the same data checks Lightspeed uses in its own finance reports. Rates, terms and loan amounts are medians across contracts with a recorded rate and a term of at least 12 months, including 0% promotional deals. Buyer age is measured at the time of purchase and is recorded on about 3 in 4 deals. Generations follow birth year, with Gen Z born in 1997 or later and boomers and older born in 1964 or earlier. These are deals recorded on dealers’ own systems rather than an industry census, so the mix reflects which dealers use Lightspeed; Harley-Davidson, for instance, accounts for about 4% of the new units financed here.
We group lenders by the kind of institution behind them rather than by their names. Eaglemark Savings Bank, for example, holds a bank charter but operates as Harley-Davidson’s finance arm, so it counts as a captive. Sheffield Financial is a division of Truist Bank, yet it lends across many brands and counts as an independent. Lending mostly on one brand doesn’t make a lender a captive either, as Auxilior Capital Partners shows: more than 90% of what it finances is Bobcat equipment, and it is a third-party lender. One credit union entry combines more than 2,000 credit union names as dealers typed them in.
Fintech firm Octane recently sold $1.4 billion in consumer loans to institutional investors through a forward-flow facility — a recurring financing arrangement where the investors will regularly purchase newly generated loans.
The leading investors were New York Life Investment Management and MetLife Investment Management — the asset manager of MetLife — along with several other investment firms. The investors agreed to purchase up to $1.4 billion in fixed-rate installments, full-spectrum powersports, and outdoor power equipment loans originated by Octane’s in-house lender, Roadrunner Financial.
The transaction — its largest to date — marks Octane’s third forward-flow partnership with funds managed by life insurance providers, building on its existing relationships with New York Life and MetLife, which both participated in its $700 million forward-flow facility in April 2025.
Octane has now sold or secured commitments to sell more than $6.3 billion of consumer loans through its forward-flow and whole-loan programs, including $3.4 billion in 2026 commitments.