If you follow the small but growing world of Native American lending then you know that Great Plains Lending is one of the more significant lenders in this group. The question last year was which of the tribal lenders other than Western Sky Financial will step into the leadership role in this industry as Western Sky faded out.
It turns out that it was Great Plains Lending that stepped into the top spot and has been running tribal lending in an informal way since. One of the big ways this lender is taking over is through advertising. That was the key to Western Sky Financial's success back in 2009 through the latter part of 2013. Setting up a website and sending out a press release that says you are in business isn't enough to get customers. Western Sky would use newspaper ads, TV and radio spots and all sorts of online marketing. Great Plains Lending is picking up where Western Sky left off, they realize that pushing their online marketing program is the only way to get people turned into customers.
Great Plains is also finding itself in the news more frequently, and that can be both a bad thing and good opportunity at the same time...
It's not such a good result when the media, and consumer groups that can't stand high interest, short-term lenders, decide to focus on the extreme interest rates that Native American lenders charge their customers. Sometimes if a news story breaks, such as the federal district court decision against the tribal lenders in 2014, it causes a number of media organizations to all write about the industry at once.
This really hurt Western Sky when they were in trouble with their licensing (state licensing versus getting set-up appropriately through the federal government) and now it is Great Plains Lending turn to feel the heat of the press.
On the flip side while it can be a problem it can also cause a spike in their business. There are always millions of Americans who are ready and willing, and truly in great need, of borrowing money. And many of these millions are not the picky types, they are ready to sign on the line for just about any form of debt because they are so desperate to keep the lights on in their house, keep gas in the tank of their car and keep food on the table.
There are public service messages that run on the radio (usually at night) talking about one in eight Americans have issues of hunger at some point during every calendar month. Don't ever doubt just how desperate millions of Americans are at every moment during the day. So when a tribal lender like Great Plains Lending finds themselves in the press, as the quasi-representative of the tribal lending industry it means that thousands more people will discover that they exist and then the bump in loan requests will come flooding in.
While Great Plains Lending is one of the leaders in the business with their maximum $3,000 loan they are not (and never will be) the type of lender that can offer up to $10,000 in an unsecured loan. And it's not just Great Plains, none of the tribal lenders offer even $5,000 loans much less stretching up to $10K.
There are a few other tribal loan companies with a strong public presence like Plain Green Loans and Spotloan. But Plain Green Loans seems to have faded a little over 2014 and now in 2015 they are just not as popular, at least with the number of articles I can find about them. Spotloan has an aggressive marketing program out there but they do not have any real level of name recognition with the media.
One nice thing that I like about this situation is that a tribal installment lender is the public face of the Native American lending industry. It's a little misleading in one sense because there are many more tribal payday loan outfits in the market while the installment lenders are much less common. But I think everyone realizes that a company like Great Plains Lending is a more appropriate representation of the Native American lending companies because they provide what more appropriately represents an actual loan.
These small tribal lenders that want to lend out $300 or $400 for a two week time frame are just hard to take seriously. If you are in need of someone else's capital (that's the definition of a loan) then getting $300 for 14 calendar days just doesn't really meet the definition of a "loan" for me personally.
Fortunately, when Great Plains Lending offers loans that last for several months and they offer $1,500 to $3,000 to an individual, then we are at least closer to what most people would remember back in 2005 (when banks actually provided loans) as a real loan.
What's the difference between $300 versus $3,000 in a loan amount? Legitimacy.
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