The South Carolina Electronic Title and Registration (ELT) program allows authorized lenders to record and service liens on vehicles, trailers or mobile homes electronically. This service will eliminate mailing, storing and manual handling of paper titles.

A lender may participate in the ELT program using 1 of the 2 approaches below:

1)       Lender Application:

• Lenders interested in participating in this program must contact an approved service provider for the SC ELT Program or complete an Application for Electronic Lien and Title Lienholder and mail the application to DMV at the following address:

SC Department of Motor Vehicles

Vehicle Compliance Unit

PO Box 1498

Blythewood, SC 29016-0023

• A memorandum of understanding for the program must be completed and signed by the lender and DMV.
• If the lender wishes to internally develop the system to communicate directly with DMV, the lender must meet the same technical requirements as service providers and achieve system certification.

ELT Participating Lenders:

First National Bank of the South

First Reliance Bank

Anderson Brothers Bank

SAFE Federal Credit Union

Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union

Greenville Federal Credit Union

First Citizens Bank and Trust Co, Inc.

Carolina Foothills Federal Credit Union

CPM Federal Credit Union

2)       Service Providers Application:

• Service Providers interested in providing ELT services as an approved ELT business partner must make application by sending a letter of request to the SC Department of Motor Vehicles at the same address as shown above.
• Service Providers must achieve system certification prior to providing ELT services to Lender.
• The ELT Service Provider Contract must be signed by the service provider and DMV.

Approved ELT Service Providers:

Decision Dynamics, Inc. (DDI)

Attn: Ann Gunning, Project Manager

P.O. Box 2078

Lexington, SC 29071

Office: (803) 808-0117

Fax: (803) 808-3780

Email: info@eTitleLien.com

Website: www.eTitleLien.com

FDI

Office: (800) 594-1470

Email: sales@fdielt.com

VINTek

Office: (888) 846-6500

Website: www.vintek.com

By completing the application for participation in the ELT program, the lender or service provider demonstrates their understanding and commitment to the following:

1. Lender may agree to enter into an agreement with a DMV approved service provider, or achieve system certification for their own ELT computer system.
2. Lender/Service Provider must agree to training as required by DMV and/or the DMV’s service provider.
3. Lender/Service Provider must agree to bear all costs for participation in the program such as costs incurred for computer hardware, labor, electronic interface system changes, and transaction processing.
4. Lender/Service Provider must agree to comply with all rules, policies, procedures and standards applicable to the ELT program.
5. Service provider must agree to all terms required by the lender and sign a non-disclosure agreement.
6. Lender/Service provider must sign memorandum of understanding with DMV before transmitting customer, vehicle and lien data.

·         An electronic title with lien will remain electronic until it is printed.

·         Once printed, it will remain a paper title, unless it is surrendered again to become an electronic title.

·         No more data will be exchanged than is currently printed on the title.

·         DMV will identify business customers as ELT lenders.

·         All liens processed for an ELT lienholder customer number will be electronic.

·         Title application and supporting documents are submitted as usual either by the customer, the lender or a dealership.

·         The title application must include the ELT leinholder customer number to insure that lien is processed as an electronic lien.

·         Title applications placed in ‘suspense’ will not print or result in an ELT lien transaction until the ‘suspense’ cause is resolved.

·         Titles removed from ‘suspense’ status will maintain the ELT status if the lienholder is an ELT lienholder.

·         ELT lienholder acknowledgements are returned in a batch with any errors identified. The acknowledgements and errors are part of the AAMVA standard transaction.

·         ELT lien errors are reported by the lienholder or service provider with a description of the error or discrepancy.

·         Lenders and service providers must abide by all applicable state and federal privacy laws to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of DMV customer data.

·         Lenders and service providers must sign a Memorandum of Understanding before vehicle, customer and lien data is electronically transmitted through the ELT program.

These are the transactions provided in support of electronic filing of liens and service of liens. These transactions will be formatted by the AAMVA ELT standards. The transactions may be processed using the AAMVA mailbox, or provisions may be made to transmit transaction through other means such as web services. There may be a charge to develop alternate communication methods.

Lien Notification

An electronic notification will be transmitted to a lender designated as an ELT lienholder when DMV processes an Application for Title and Registration recording a lien against a vehicle. The electronic notification creates an electronic title. Applications for title and registration received by DMV must meet all title and registration requirements before the lien will be electronically recorded. ELT lenders will have a designated customer number to identify the lender as an ELT lienholder.

Lien Release

When a lien is satisfied on a vehicle with an ELT title, the ELT lender will send an electronic message to DMV. Upon receipt of the electronic notification, the lien will be marked as satisfied on DMV files and a title will be printed and mailed to the second lienholder, the owner or the ‘mail to’ address identified in the message. A ‘mail to’ address can be a dealership, bank or other third party.

Lien Release Due to Error

When an ELT lender receives a lien notification that is not recognized as that lender’s lien, a Lien Release due to error message should be sent to DMV. DMV will research the error by verifying the electronic data with the application for title and supporting documents. If an error was made in recording the lien, owner or vehicle data, the error will be corrected and a new lien notification will be sent to the ELT lender. If the error cannot be corrected, DMV will contact the ELT lender by letter, email or telephone.

Print Title

If the ELT lender transmits a print title message, DMV will print the title, remove the title from ELT status and mail the title to the lienholder or the designated ‘mail to’ address.

Change Owner’s Address

ELT lenders can transmit change of address data for the owner of the vehicle if the owner changes addressed with the lender. When this data is received, DMV will compare the address to the address for the customer in the DMV customer files. If the new address is on file with DMV for the owner, no action will be taken. If the owner has not changed the address with DMV, a letter will be mailed to the customer stating the address change was reported by the lender and how to change a customer’s address with DMV.

These are the transactions offered in support of perfecting and releasing liens for vehicles, trailers and mobile homes electronically.

• Lien Notification
• Lien Release
• Lien Release Due to Error
• Print Title
• Change Owner Address

These transactions will be processed according to AAMVA standards using the message count mode. Messages will be grouped to send to the lender, which will respond by sending a count of messages received, messages processed and messages in error with the appropriate error messages.

The documentation for recording of liens will be presented to the Department of Motor Vehicles in the normal manner. If the first lien is held by a financial institution in the ELT Program, no hardcopy title will be printed. An electronic message will be sent to the lender with the vehicle, owner and lien data. The lender will acknowledge and confirm the lien data. This will be handled in a batch process at night.

ELT System Certification:

Lenders/Service Providers are required to pass a structured test to achieve system certification. Before ‘going live’ in production, lender/service provider must complete all necessary agreements and demonstrate that the lien notification and lien servicing transactions can be accomplished in a test environment. Samples of test transactions are listed next. Once the lender or service provider system is certified by DMV, no additional testing will be required to add other lenders to the same system.  These lenders must complete all necessary agreements.

Click here to view ELT Structured Test.

A customer number will be designated as the ELT Lienholder Customer Number for the Lender.  This number may be identified from the customer numbers on file with DMV or a new customer number may be assigned.  If the lienholder customer has multiple customer number on the DMV records, DMV will merge all numbers that can be identified as belonging to the ELT Lienholder to the ELT lienholder customer number.  This will assist with the effort to convert paper titles to electronic titles. DMV will maintain a lienholder code table in its automated files.  The table will be updated as needed, based on information received from participating financial institutions.

Transmission of Data

¨       DMV will transmit information to each lienholder nightly.

¨       Transmissions will be done as part of the regular nightly production.

¨       Transmissions will include all:

§         Titles with liens created by DMV during that work day.

§         Confirmations of all messages received from the lienholder.

§         Correction messages to data previously transmitted to the lienholder by DMV.

§         DMV will retrieve lienholder transmissions daily during the regular nightly production.

DMV will notify the lienholder of errors in transmission and/or data by the next working day after the error is discovered.  Notification can be through the nightly production process or by telephone.

Unless otherwise specified, liens released and print title transactions will be processed the following evening after the messages are received from the lienholder. All titles will be printed in a nightly batch production process. The titles will be mailed to the vehicle owner if the lien is satisfied or to the lienholder if a print paper title is requested.  If a ‘mail to’ address is provided, the title will be mailed to that address unless there is a second lienholder.  If there is a second lienholder, the title will be mailed to the second lienholder. If the second lienholder is an ELT lender, the electronic lien notification will be sent instead of the paper title.