Nature Of The Company

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2014

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Nature Of The Company

1. Nature of the Company

The Company provides specialty financial services to individuals through its storefront lending and franchised check cashing locations. The Company’s primary line of business is pawn lending. Pawn loans are short-term loans made on the pledge of tangible personal property. Pawn loan fees and service charges are generated from the Company’s pawn loan portfolio. A related activity of the pawn lending operations is the disposition of collateral from forfeited pawn loans and the liquidation of a smaller volume of merchandise purchased directly from customers or from third parties.

Another component of the Company's business is originating, arranging, guaranteeing or purchasing consumer loans in some of its locations. Consumer loans provide customers with cash, typically in exchange for an obligation to repay the amount advanced plus fees and any applicable interest. Consumer loans include short-term loans (commonly referred to as payday loans) and installment loans.

Short-term consumer loans include unsecured short-term loans written by the Company or by a third-party lender through the Company’s CSO programs that the Company guarantees. See Note 2 for further discussion about the Company’s CSO programs. Installment consumer loans are longer-term, multi-payment loans that generally require the pay-down of portions of the outstanding principal balance in multiple installments. Installment loans include unsecured loans and loans secured by a customer’s vehicle written by the Company or by a third-party lender through the CSO programs that the Company guarantees.

Another small component of the Company's business includes the offering of check cashing and other ancillary products and services through some of its Company-owned lending locations. The ancillary products and services are described in Note 19. In addition, the Company’s franchised check cashing business offers check cashing services through its franchised check cashing centers.