Mr. Mehdi Moghareh reports

OCAL FINANCIAL EXPLAINS ITS CREDIT AND LENDER-ROUTING SYSTEM, AND THE UNDERSERVED MARKET IT SERVES

Ocal Financial Inc. has explained the credit and lender-routing system at the core of its approval-first process and how it lets the company serve a wider range of borrowers than a traditional dealership submission can.

A large and growing share of Canadians do not fit neatly into a bank's credit box. Gig workers, newcomers to the country and people with thin credit files are often turned away by submissions that look only at a bureau score, even when they can comfortably afford a vehicle. As the work force shifts toward contract and self-employment and as immigration adds people who have not yet built a Canadian credit history, that group is growing rather than shrinking. It is not a niche. It is a meaningful part of the market, and it is exactly where Ocal's approach is designed to help.

Ocal's system scores how well each deal fits each lender, then sends the file to the lenders most likely to approve it on reasonable terms. It looks past the bureau score alone, adding income stability and other signals alongside traditional credit data, so a capable borrower with a short or unusual credit history is judged on more than a single number. It is built to meet anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer requirements and lender-grade credit standards, and it runs machine learning checks that flag anomalies and reduce risk for the lender.

It is worth being clear about what Ocal does and does not do. Ocal does not lend, it does not underwrite, and it does not hold the loans or take on credit default risk. Its role is to prepare a clean, lender-ready file and route it to the right financing partner. That distinction matters for investors: Ocal earns from arranging financing and selling vehicles and related products, without carrying the credit risk that sits with a lender. It is a fee-and-margin business, not a balance sheet lender.

Getting the fit right before submission has a direct effect on the economics. It means fewer declines, fewer repeat credit pulls and a higher share of applications that turn into financed deals. Each of those is a lever on the same funnel: a lead that is well matched the first time will cost less to convert than one that is declined and resubmitted, and lenders value a partner whose files are clean and well structured.

The system does not operate on its own. It works alongside Ocal's multilender network and its vehicle-sourcing engine, so an approval flows straight into finding a vehicle that fits the approved structure, rather than the other way around, where a customer picks a car and then hopes the financing lands. Approval first, vehicle second is only possible because the credit layer and the sourcing layer talk to each other.

There is a fairness dimension here as well. Capable borrowers who happen to be self-employed or new to the country should not be turned away because a single score does not capture their situation. Looking at income stability and other real-world signals gives those borrowers a fair hearing, and it does so without asking a lender to take on more risk than it wants, because the file is matched to a lender whose criteria already fit.

Serving that segment well is also a competitive advantage. Many dealerships treat non-prime customers as an afterthought, or hand them a single take-it-or-leave-it option. A company built to route those customers to the right lender can win business that others do not compete hard for, in a part of the market that is large and, by most measures, still growing.

As Ocal grows and gathers more data on which files succeed with which lenders, the routing is designed to get better over time, which is one more way the business is built to improve as it scales.

"A better fit before submission means fewer wasted pulls and a cleaner file for the lender," said Mehdi Moghareh, chief executive officer of Ocal. "We are not a lender. We are the layer that gets a well-built deal in front of the right lender the first time.

"Building for gig workers, newcomers and thin-file customers is the fair thing to do, and it is also a large part of the market the traditional process leaves behind," added Mr. Moghareh. "Serving it well is both good business and good for the customer."

About Ocal Financial Inc.

Ocal Financial is an asset-light, artificial-intelligence-native virtual automotive dealership and vehicle finance platform. Operating remotely and licensed in British Columbia and Alberta, Ocal moves customers from application to approval, vehicle matching, digital contracting and delivery in a single workflow. Rather than carrying owned inventory, Ocal sources each vehicle only after a customer is approved, drawing on the Openlane auction network and select partners. Ocal earns revenue from vehicle sales and related finance and protection products, and does not hold consumer loans or assume credit default risk. Its technology stack, which includes workflow orchestration, a lender-routing credit intelligence system, voice AI and a centralized business intelligence system, is built specifically for automotive transactions.

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