In the good ‘ol days, we had a nice neat hierachical order to the credit lending – a prime lender, near-prime lender, and subprime lender. Well, those days are gone! Consumer finance (and even patient finance) lending has morphed and the lines have blurred. Today, you see traditional prime lenders “digging deeper” or approving lower [...]
Let me be clear - In no way are you a dummy! But, how credit decisions are made by a bank or lender can make you dumbfounded. While every person’s credit report has similar data categories – credit limits, account balance, monthly payments, credit inquiries, etc. – what a bank looks at when considering issuing [...]
The phrase, “Color of Money” is most commonly synonymous with the 1986 movie starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, but is considered to be a phrase used way back when to see what type of money someone actually had – that they were good for whatever the need was. Money comes in many forms. What [...]
Whether you’re a business offering financing options to consumers or you’re a consumer out looking for ways to pay over time for the things you want, you’ll be interested to know that financing programs are not static. The old adage “Nothing is certain but death and taxes” rings true when it comes to lending options [...]
The advertisements are everywhere. They’re on TV, satellite radio, mail, web browsing, and social media. Lenders want you to bring your outstanding balances to them with the promise of a lower rate, which may or may not be true. It sounds like a good idea – make three or four different payments become one. But, [...]
Some journalists have been sounding the rising debt alarm bell. While I’m not worried about current debt levels, I do take solace in the concerns being raised, as there was none of that pre-2008. What I will attempt to do in this post is to break household debt down for you. The Federal Reserve Bank [...]
So, your credit score is nothing to write home about and you really need (or want) that large purchase. You can fit a personal loan payment in to your monthly budget, and making timely debt payments helps to improve that credit score, so that you can eventually write home about it! But, you cringe at [...]
You know you need to offer your customers a way to pay over time for that product or service. You also know that offering in-store financing can be a hassle, uncertain, and expensive. In fact, most small businesses who have taken the bold step to offer in-store financing only come to find that it is [...]
Key takeaways from a personal loan marketplace study Supermoney put out a detailed and well discussed state of the personal loan marketplace. Key take-aways from the study are as follows: The consumer lending market is a favorite source of credit for millions of consumers and it’s growing. Household expenses, debt consolidation, and medical expenses are [...]
It’s not easy being a business selling big-ticket goods and/or services. Wouldn’t it be great if every customer paid cash for their purchases? Or at least had room on a credit card to swipe and be done? But, that is not how many consumers like to purchase things that cost several thousand dollars. They [...]