Ally Financial Inc. is a bank holding company organized in Delaware and headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. It is on the list of largest banks in the United States. The company provides financial services including online banking, car finance, corporate lending, vehicle insurance, mortgages, credit cards, and brokerage firm services.
Ally is the largest car finance company in the U.S. by volume and serves approximately 18,500 automotive dealerships and 4.3 million retail consumers. Via its SmartAuction online marketplace for auto auctions, launched in 2000, the company has sold more than 5 million vehicles including 356,000 vehicles sold in 2017.
The company was named GMAC Inc. (an acronym for General Motors Acceptance Corporation) until 2010.
History
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The company was founded in 1919 by General Motors (GM) as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) to provide financing to automotive customers. In 1939, the company founded Motors Insurance Corporation and entered the vehicle insurance market.
In 1985, while GM was under the leadership of Roger Smith, who sought to diversify the company, GMAC formed GMAC Mortgage and acquired Colonial Mortgage as well as the servicing arm of Norwest Mortgage, which included an $11 billion mortgage portfolio.
In 1991, the company was forced to write-off $275 million in bad debt as part of a $436 million loss suffered from fraud committed by John McNamara, who ran a Ponzi scheme.
In 1998, the company formed GMAC Real Estate. In 1999, GMAC Mortgage acquired Ditech. In 2000, the company formed GMAC Bank, a direct bank. In 2005, the company formed GMAC ResCap as a holding company for its mortgage operations.
In 2006, General Motors sold a 51% interest in GMAC to Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. Also that year, GMAC sold a controlling interest of GMAC Commercial Holdings, its real estate division that was renamed Capmark, to Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Five Mile Capital Partners. GMAC Real Estate was sold to Brookfield Asset Management. In 2009, Capmark filed for bankruptcy and its North American loan origination and servicing business was acquired by Berkadia, a joint venture of Leucadia National and Berkshire Hathaway.
On December 24, 2008, the Federal Reserve accepted the company's application to become a bank holding company. In January 2009, the company shut Nuvell Financial Services, its subprime lending division.
As a result of losses in GMAC ResCap, the United States Treasury invested $17.2 billion in the company in 2008-2009. The Treasury sold its last stake in the company in 2014, recovering $19.6 billion from its $17.2 billion investment.
On May 15, 2009, GMAC Bank changed its name to Ally Bank. In May 2010, GMAC re-branded itself as Ally Financial. In September 2010, the company sold its resort finance business to Centerbridge Partners. In 2012, the company sold its Canadian banking operations to Royal Bank of Canada for $3.8 billion. In April 2014, the company became a public company via an initial public offering. In 2015, it moved its headquarters to One Detroit Center. In June 2016, the company acquired TradeKing, a brokerage firm, which was rebranded as Ally Invest.
Sponsorships
The company sponsors the South Florida Auto Show and the Time Magazine Quality Dealer Award.
Legal issues
2013 discrimination settlement
In December 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a settlement with Ally Financial to resolve alleged discrimination in its indirect auto lending program. According to the consent order, Ally charged African American borrowers an average of 29 basis points more than similarly situated White borrowers, Hispanic borrowers 20 basis points more than White borrowers, and Asian/Pacific Islanders 22 basis points more than White borrowers. The CFPB concluded that these disparities were statistically significant, based on race, and not based on creditworthiness or objective criteria related to borrower risk. The CFPB also alleged that the higher markups resulted from Ally’s specific policy and practice of allowing dealers to mark up a consumer’s interest rate above Ally’s established buy rate and then compensating dealers based on the markup. Under the terms of the consent order, Ally was required to establish a compliance committee, submit a compliance plan to the CFPB and United States Department of Justice for review, and pay $80 million in consumer monetary damages and $18 million in civil penalties.
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