Category: Uncategorized

02
Apr

Payday Loan Industry: Tactics, Strategy, Consolidation & DFC Global

'Hot News' photo (c) 2010, Keith Ramsey - license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/Damn! No more listening in on DFC earnings conference calls 🙁

To: All DFC Employees
From: Jeff Weiss, Chairman and CEO
Date: April 2, 2014
Subject: Exciting News about our Future

Dear Team Members:

I want to let you know about an exciting new chapter in our company’s history.

We have entered into an agreement to be acquired by Lone Star Funds, a global private equity firm based in Texas. This agreement is an important endorsement of our company as a valued investment, and will help us better secure our future as an industry leader in the financial services market.

As a result of the transaction, which we expect to be completed in the third calendar quarter of 2014, we will once again become a private company, and will no longer be traded on the NASDAQ. As you many of you may remember, we were a privately held company prior to going public in 2005.

Lone Star has extensive experience in the financial services and retail sectors, and has an excellent history of working with companies and their management teams to help them achieve outstanding operating and financial objectives. With their commitment, we believe we can accelerate our plans to grow our business, resulting in enhanced opportunities for all of us and our customers.

We are at the early stages of this transaction and there is still a lot of work ahead of us. In particular, over the coming months we will be seeking approvals from both our regulatory agencies and shareholders. In parallel to those efforts, members of DFC will be working alongside representatives of Lone Star to plan our strategy for after we close the transaction. We want to be ready to hit the ground running on day one, and we will provide you with updates on those plans and our future activities as we reach key milestones.

Naturally, you will want to know how today’s announcement impacts you. First, until the transaction closes, we will continue to operate as an independent company. While there will ultimately be a change in the equity ownership of our company, it will have little effect on our business operations or on your day-to-day responsibilities. Lone Star agrees with us that our people are among our most valuable assets and recognizes that each of you have been a driving force behind our success.

I want every one of you to know how much we value and appreciate the important contributions you make every day. It is your diligence that has been the foundation for our achievements over the last 30 years.

I encourage all of you to remain focused on continuing to provide the same convenience, accessibility and high quality service that our global customer base has come to expect from us.

Today’s announcement may lead to increased interest from the media and other third parties. It is crucial that we speak with one voice and that you not directly respond to any external inquiries. Please direct all media or third party inquiries to our external communications partner, ICR, via either Garrett Edson or Phil Denning .

Sincerely,

Jeff Weiss Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Lone Star Fund VIII (U.S.), L.P. has committed to capitalize Parent, at or prior to the Closing, with an aggregate equity contribution in an amount of $750,000,000 on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the equity commitment letter dated April 1, 2014 (the “ Equity Commitment Letter ”).

Pursuant to the debt commitment, Jefferies Finance LLC and jointly, Credit Suisse AG and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (the “ Lenders ”) have committed to provide, on a several basis, 60% and 40%, respectively, of (i) a $125,000,000 senior secured, asset-based revolving credit facility and (ii) to the extent that all or any portion of the $750,000,000 senior secured notes contemplated by the Debt Commitment Letter are not issued on or prior to the Effective Time, a senior secured bridge facility in an aggregate principal amount of up to $750,000,000, on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in a debt commitment letter entered into by the Lenders in connection with the Merger (the “ Debt Commitment Letter ”).

Payday loan fans, expect to see a lot more consolidation in our industry! The heat is on, new competitors are entering (often funded by Silicon Valley), and the current regulatory environment is driving this momentum.

Jer@PaydayLoanIndustryBlog.com Here’s a link to the DFC Global SEC Filings

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29
Mar

Marketing Ideas, Capital and ACH for Payday Loan and Car Title Lenders

Payday loan marketing ideas

Social Media Marketing World

By Jer Trihouse. I just returned from the Social Media Marketing World extravaganza in San Diego. 3 days devoted to marketing tactics and strategies for payday loan and car title lenders – No not really! All industries were represented. Man, it really pays to step out of your comfort zone by sharing ideas and learning from experts in industries other than lending. I must admit that on more than one occasion, when I responded with candor to the question, “So Jer, what do YOU do,” my response was not always met with admiration. On the other hand, on several occasions, I found myself in the middle of some large groups of fascinated listeners.

Over the next few weeks, return here to for some revolutionary ideas for using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, blogging, mobile websites, SMS, and much more to ramp up your transaction volume for your alternative financial services business.

And of equal importance, I have another ACH processor for tribes and offshore lenders plus “serious” [$5M minimum] capital available for well established lenders. This is “real” so do not waste one another’s time!

Jer@TrihouseConsulting.com
702-208-6736 [My phone rings off the hook. It’s my cell. Text or leave a message if you miss me.]

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24
Mar

Payday Loan, Installment Lending & Direct to Merchant Disruption

Jer Trihouse

Jer Trihouse

By Jer Trihouse. The small dollar loan space is undergoing monumental change. It’s time we step back and remember what our borrower’s goals are. They want money, right! But what’s their next move? To pay a merchant for a service or a product? Maybe pay a bill?

In case you missed this, Max Levchin has entered the lending space. A co-founder at Paypal, Max launched Affirm.com last year. In effect, Affirm provides consumers with 30 day loans to enable them to purchase goods and services from merchants. Affirm offers payment solutions for a wide range of online storefronts across the U.S. Affirm employs Facebook for authentication of borrowers, and uses  other social and data signals to assess risk. Other data Affirm will be using range from incomes per zip code and a user’s mobile device ID. Affirm then guarantees payment to merchants — who pay Affirm a fee — after this underwriting process.

“We are trying to get as close as possible to one-click, which has always been the case on the desktop,” said Levchin. “In mobile, it has become an imperative to be able to buy it now or you lose a customer quickly.”

“You will essentially be putting a purchase on a digital tab, and we’re going to make it work for us by looking at all available data to determine if you are someone who will pay it back,” said Levchin.

Like any credit card, consumers will have 30 days to pay their bills. Affirm will not charge consumers for the service. In addition, he added, the “overwhelming transformation of everything toward mobile shopping changes all the fundamentals.”

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18
Mar

Payday Lending Big Data + New ODFI’s and ACH Processors

Payday Loan Industry

Payday Loan Industry

By: Jer Trihouse. Sub-prime underwriting techniques have evolved dramatically with the entrance of Silicon Valley financed lenders “LendUp,” “ZestFinance,” “Wonga,” and “Think Finance.” Heavy hitters like PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Douglas Merrill and venture firms Sequoia Capital and Google Ventures are making inroads with the 60M+ borrowers seeking payday loan styled products.

Back in 1998, when I opened my first payday loan store in California, our only option was Teletrack. Teletrack focused on aggregating data submitted by brick-n-mortars. If all your local competitors used their service, Teletrack was effective for evaluating your risks and collecting on your defaults down the road.

Today, we have CoreLogic, Clarity, DataX, Microbuilt, Factor Trust… all providing payday loan lenders with tools to evaluate our loan applicants and collecting our money. Add to this tool arsenal, “Big Data.”

Lenders are evaluating a borrower’s Tweets, Facebook updates, Pinterest activities, LinkedIn profile, how much time a borrower spends on a lender’s application page, does a borrower use all CAPS to fill it out, does the borrower jump directly to the $5000 loan principal vs. the $500 loan without reading the “T & C’s” and more.

A few payday loan lenders offer better loan rates to borrowers who sign in to a lender’s website with their Facebook or Twitter account.

Analyzing thousands of data points in less than 3 seconds is now the norm. Add to this the ability to access a borrower’s rent and utility payment history and one would expect fees charged to borrowers will decline. Ah, but don’t jump to this conclusion! In today’s economic environment, few borrowers evaluate fees and rated charged for their loans. Of primary importance is how quickly can the borrower access money with the least amount of hassle. The costs are secondary in importance.

Lenders charge what they can. Borrowers just want emergency money FAST. Rate competition is rare. Particularly after the disruption that’s taken place in the payday loan industry beginning last August.

NOTE: If you’re a lender who has been forced to sit on the sidelines because you’ve “lost” access to your ACH provider, contact Jer at 702-208-6736 [jer@TrihouseConsulting.com] If you’ve “lost” your bank account, contact Jer. There are new ODFI’s and ACH providers ready to serve you. To get the ball rolling quickly, GO HERE: Request for Information. AND, if you represent an ODFI with an interest in the PDL space, reach out to me! It’s a $60B (US) industry.

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13
Mar

California Payday Loan Proposed Rulemaking by DOB

By: Admin at Trihouse Payday Loan Consulting: The STATE OF CALIFORNIA – DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS OVERSIGHT is seeking consumer and industry comments on proposed rulemaking relevant to the California payday loan industry. The California DOB is accepting comments until May 6th. It’s critical that our industry provide insight regarding the impact and acceptance of these proposed rule changes. Our “haters” have been very active!

INVITATION FOR COMMENTS ON PROPOSED RULEMAKING UNDER THE CALIFORNIA DEFERRED DEPOSIT TRANSACTION LAW

[NOTE: This was brought to my attention by the law offices of San Francisco based Paul Soter. Paul specializes in providing legal counsel for lenders in Calif.]

BACKGROUND

The Department licenses and regulates deferred deposit originators, more commonly known as payday lenders, under the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law (Financial Code section 23000 et seq.). The Department is considering various changes to the regulations under the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law and prior to initiating formal rulemaking, recently sought comments on these changes from  interested parties [see Invitation for Comments on Proposed Rulemaking Under the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law (PRO 04-08), dated May 29, 2013].

Among other things, the potential changes would authorize a licensee to use electronic fund transfers and prepaid debit cards offered by licensees to provide the funds from transactions to customers and to collect payments from them, but would not permit a licensee to use a customer’s debit card, prepaid debit card or credit card in conjunction with a deferred deposit transaction.

QUESTIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION

The Department received a number of written comments on the proposed changes. Some of the comments have offered insights that may suggest the need for further consideration and therefore the Department is requesting additional information. The Department is also seeking specific information on the potential economic and cost impact to businesses and consumersContinue Reading..

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