Ford Motor Credit Company is the financial services

Financial services

Financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money. Among these organizations are credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies,...

 arm of Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

, and is headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan

Dearborn, Michigan

-Economy:Ford Motor Company has its world headquarters in Dearborn. In addition its Dearborn campus contains many research, testing, finance and some production facilities. Ford Land controls the numerous properties owned by Ford including sales and leasing to unrelated businesses such as the...

.

Its business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

 activities are concentrated primarily in the area of automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 loans in support of its parent company. The company offers consumer loans and leases to car buyers, as well as business loans and lines of credit to dealerships selling Ford Motor Company products. The firm also issues commercial paper

Commercial paper

In the global money market, commercial paper is an unsecured promissory note with a fixed maturity of 1 to 270 days. Commercial Paper is a money-market security issued by large banks and corporations to get money to meet short term debt obligations , and is only backed by an issuing bank or...

 and other debt

Debt

A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...

 instruments on Ford's behalf.

Ford Credit, as it is popularly known, is somewhat analogous to GMAC financial services, the credit

Credit (finance)

Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...

 and lending arm of competitor General Motors.

Ford Credit also owns PRIMUS Financial Services, formerly known as Primus Automotive Financial Services. PRIMUS specializes in non-Ford financing by providing private-label financing to other Ford owned but not Ford badged brands such as Lincoln, Mercury, and Volvo.

Primus was formerly known as Marine Midland Automotive Financial services (MMAFC) and was owned by Marine Midland Bank

Marine Midland Bank

Marine Midland Bank was a bank formerly headquartered in Buffalo with several hundred branches throughout the state of New York. Marine Midland began in 1850 in Buffalo as the Marine Trust Company with the objective of financing the new shipping trade on the Great Lakes...

 of Buffalo, New York

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

. Ford Credit bought MMAFC in 1990 and moved the headquarters to Nashville and later Franklin, Tennessee.