The average person has never heard of Think Finance and that's not too surprising as the company doesn't work directly with the public. Instead, they partner with other financial companies and provide financing, banking, transaction services and technological support to 'customer facing' lenders. One of their biggest customers, and one of the biggest lenders in the field of tribal lending, is a company called Plain Green Loans. If you've followed this site for any length of time you know that this is one of the four or five Native American lenders that I can support due to their (relatively) "low" interest rates, and the fact that they will lend over $2,000 as opposed to most tribal lenders that want to lend less than $500.
Now that you know the background there is very big news that took place recently (it actually was about a month ago on June 2, 2016) when Think Finance LLC formally broke ties from their long time business partner Plain Green Loans. This even is interesting because it's being delivered and detailed as though Plain Green Loans has decided to move on from Think Finance. Plain Green Loans issued the following statement on the matter which reads "Think Finance has played a vital role in the growth of Plain Green" and then the company goes on to say "but in order for Plain Green to reach its full potential we knew it was necessary to develop our own lending platform and operate independently" -- so it would seem that there is little doubt that Plain Green essentially fired Think Finance, right?
Although that is the official line being reported I am a little skeptical on the story. Plain Green had a lot of things staked with Think Finance, they used their software and analytics to determine customer behavior, Think Finance also helped make decisions when it came to underwriting. Think Finance basically was the heart and soul of one of the largest tribal lenders ever to be formed, that being Plain Green.
Here is another bit of the story that offers some insight. A federal judge recently made a decision not to send a lawsuit against Think Finance and Plain Green Loans to arbitration, instead allowing the case to move ahead. The judge essentially said that Think Finance IS Plain Green Loans, that Think Finance is basically running the whole show at Plain Green and that Plain Green Loans is just providing the sovereign status via their Montana federally recognized reservation. So it seems that Think Finance has much more to lose in the matter, and that it is their organization behind the operations of Plain Green. So when the two organizations write saying that Plain Green is 'moving on' well, it's more like the water is getting hotter and Think Finance has got to get out of the hot water.
Plain Green will have to takeover operations, which to me personally sounds more like they will have to start running their own company for the first time since it was founded. Obviously there is a high degree of speculation here on my part and there is no way to prove any of this, however it just seems strange that Plain Green Loans would dismiss their nuts and bolts operator for five years. And that they would decide to dismiss them right after the federal judge says that the case against them will not be disposed of, and will not be sent to arbitration, and instead will move ahead through the courts which translates to an open-ended liability for Think Finance? For my own opinion we do not need to read between the lines too hard to see that Think Finance is the one doing the dumping in this breakup.
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