Octane, Huntington launch OPE financing platform with Ariens, Gravely

Octane Lending and Huntington National Bank are launching a digital financing program designed to streamline outdoor power equipment purchases for dealers and consumers. 

The Huntington Bank Powered by Octane program will enable outdoor power equipment (OPE) dealers Ariens and Gravely to manage the full financing process on one platform, according to a March 13 Octane release. Prime borrowers are financed through Huntington, while nearprime customers can receive offers through Octane’s in-house lender, Roadrunner Financial, on the same dealer portal. 

Huntington intends to broaden its credit offerings and tap into Octane’s dealer-facing technology as the OPE market grows, Tim Skinner, managing director of consumer lending at Huntington, told Auto Finance News. 

“We thought there was a missing piece of being able to deliver a more full-spectrum credit picture with a single processing platform,” he said. “The combination of those two things would be really powerful to create a single interaction with customers on the dealer floor that doesn’t result in bifurcated application processes.”  

The platform lets dealers submit customers digitally for financing and receive offers based on their credit profiles, Skinner said.

 “It’s an incredibly digital-driven process that doesn’t require a whole lot of intervention from the dealer or the customer,” he said. 

OPE market expansion 

The deal comes amid the expansion of the OPE market, which was valued at $28.3 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $34 billion by 2030, driven by rising commercial landscaping demand and emerging technologies, according to a Jan. 27 release by market research firm Research and Markets. 

As a result, the market represents a strong lending opportunity due to its mix of consumer, commercial equipment and small business buyers and relatively strong credit quality, Skinner said. 

“It’s certainly an attractive market when you look at the makeup of the consumer base in the space,” Skinner said. “We’re starting in that front-end consumer place and then extending into more small business transactions and trying to do that in a similarly digital and automated way, which is not as prevalent in the industry model.” 

The partnership addresses a strategic need amid both companies’ OPE expansion efforts, Octane Chief Executive Jason Guss told AFN. OPE differs from other recreational lending sectors because of its higher commercial use and more fragmented dealer base.

“As we look at the OPE market, there’s a little bit more commercial activity and a lot more utility in certain cases, which is a critical difference from an underwriting standpoint,” he said. “The type of merchants are also a bit different, so it’s more fragmented.” 

Huntington, Octane relationship 

Huntington and Octane announced a joint effort to build a digital finance platform on Nov. 17, 2025, with Ariens and Gravely the first OEMs to sign on. 

Huntington has deep relationships with OPE dealers and manufacturers through its floorplan lending business, Guss said. He noted that the bank has significant experience working with dealers in the mower segment. 

“They understood the dealers, they understood the manufacturers and they understood the consumer,” Guss said. “They were the perfect partner for this specific opportunity.” 

Octane white-labels its financing technology for Huntington, marking its first captive-as-a-service partnership expansion with another financier, Guss said. 

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “We see opportunities to grow this business together and potentially expand into other markets over time.” 

This story first appeared on Auto Finance News, a publication of Royal Media.

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