Atlanticus Holdings Corporation operates as a financial technology company that leverages data, analytics, and innovative technology to unlock access to financial solutions for the millions of Americans.
The company provides technology and other support services to lenders who offer an array of financial products and services to consumers. Both private label and general purpose card products are originated by the Bank of Missouri and WebBank (collectively, the company’s ‘bank partners’). The co...
Atlanticus Holdings Corporation operates as a financial technology company that leverages data, analytics, and innovative technology to unlock access to financial solutions for the millions of Americans.
The company provides technology and other support services to lenders who offer an array of financial products and services to consumers. Both private label and general purpose card products are originated by the Bank of Missouri and WebBank (collectively, the company’s ‘bank partners’). The company’s bank partners originate these accounts through multiple channels, including retail and healthcare point-of-sale locations, direct mail solicitation, digital marketing, and partnerships with third parties. The company’s flexible technology solutions allow its bank partners to integrate its paperless process and instant decisioning platform with the existing infrastructure of participating retailers, healthcare providers, and other service providers. Using the company’s technology and proprietary predictive analytics, lenders can make instant credit decisions utilizing hundreds of inputs from multiple sources, and thereby offer credit to consumers overlooked by many providers of financing that focus exclusively on consumers with higher FICO scores. Atlanticus’ decisioning platform is enhanced by machine learning, enabling lenders to make fast, sound decisions when it matters most.
The company is principally engaged as a program manager, providing a technology platform and corresponding services to lenders in the U.S. to assist those lenders with offering products to consumers. These lenders pay the company a fee, and in most circumstances, the lenders are then obligated to sell the company the receivables they generate from these products. The company acquires these receivables for the principal amount of the loan. For certain of its receivables, the company also receives merchant fees from its retail partners that are used to enhance its returns for those receivables. The company compensates its bank partners monthly for the regulatory oversight they provide associated with its acquired receivables, the underlying accounts of which they continue to own and service. This compensation is based on both a fixed and variable component dependent on the underlying performance of the acquired receivables (collectively, ‘Bank partner fees’). As the company is obligated to compensate its bank partners for the duration of the underlying account, it recognizes the fair value of these Bank partner fees within Card and loan servicing on the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Income on the date it acquires the underlying receivable.
Segments
The company operates through two reportable segments, Credit as a Service (‘CaaS’) and Auto Finance.
Credit as a Service Segment
Within the company’s CaaS segment, it applies its technology solutions, in combination with the experiences gained and infrastructure built from servicing over $42 billion in consumer loans over more than 25 years of operating history, to support lenders in offering more inclusive financial services. These products include private label credit cards using the Fortiva and Curae brand names, as well as merchant associated brands. Private label credit products associated with the healthcare space are generally issued under the Curae brand, while all other retail partnerships, including those in consumer electronics, furniture, elective medical procedures, and home improvement, use the Fortiva brand or the company’s retail partners’ brands. The company’s general purpose credit cards use the Aspire, Imagine, and Fortiva brand names. The company’s flexible technology solutions allow its bank partners to integrate its paperless process and instant decisioning platform with the existing infrastructure of participating retailers, healthcare providers, and other service providers.
Using the company’s infrastructure and technology, it also provides loan servicing, including risk management and customer service outsourcing, for third parties. Also, through the company’s CaaS segment, it engages in testing and limited investment in consumer technology platforms as it seeks to capitalize on its expertise and infrastructure. Additionally, the company reports within its CaaS segment: servicing income, and gains or losses associated with notes receivable and equity investments previously made in consumer technology platforms. These include investments in companies engaged in mobile technologies, marketplace lending, and other financial technologies. One of these companies, Fintiv Inc., has sued Apple, Inc., Walmart, Inc., and PayPal Holdings, Inc. for patent infringement. Fintiv Inc. has approximately 150 patents related to secure money transfer on computer and mobile devices.
Private Label Credit
The company’s bank partners work with both the company and its retail partners to provide financing options to retail consumers. The company’s flexible technology allows retail partners to present financing offers to their customers through a variety of delivery options, including retail point of sale locations, online transactions, or through in-home sales.
General Purpose Credit Cards
The company works closely with its bank partners to assist them in creating general purpose credit card offers. Working collaboratively with its bank partners, each offer the company’s bank partners extend to a consumer is tailored based on the consumer’s individual risk profile. These offers include finance and fee structures designed to provide the company with an adequate return on invested capital upon acquisition of any associated receivable.
The company’s bank partners continue to provide ongoing account management and oversight for both its Private label credit and General purpose credit card receivables, for which the company compensates the bank partners monthly.
Auto Finance Segment
Within the company’s Auto Finance segment, its CAR subsidiary operations principally purchase and/or service loans secured by automobiles from or for, and also provide floor-plan financing for, a pre-qualified network of independent automotive dealers and automotive finance companies in the buy-here, pay-here used car business. The company generates revenues on purchased loans through interest earned on the face value of the installment agreements combined with the accretion of discounts on loans purchased. The company generally earns discount income over the life of the applicable loan. Additionally, it generates revenues from servicing loans on behalf of dealers for a portion of actual collections and by providing back-up servicing for similar quality assets owned by unrelated third parties. The company offers a number of other products to its network of buy-here, pay-here dealers (including the company’s floor-plan financing offering), but the majority of its activities are represented by its purchases of auto loans at discounts and its servicing of auto loans for a fee. As of December 31, 2024, its CAR operations served over 670 dealers in 34 states and two U.S. territories.
Consumer and Debtor Protection Laws and Regulations
CaaS Segment: The company’s U.S. business is regulated directly and indirectly under various federal and state consumer protection, collection, and other laws, rules, and regulations, including the federal Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (the ‘CARD Act’), the federal Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (‘Dodd-Frank’), the federal Truth In Lending Act (‘TILA’), the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Federal Trade Commission (‘FTC’) Act, the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the federal Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act.
Auto Finance Segment: This segment is regulated directly and indirectly under various federal and state consumer protection and other laws, rules, and regulations, including the federal TILA, the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Dodd-Frank, the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the federal Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act.
Privacy and Data Security Laws and Regulations: The company must comply with guidelines under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that require each financial institution to develop, implement, and maintain a written, comprehensive information security program containing safeguards that are appropriate to the financial institution’s size and complexity, the nature and scope of the financial institution’s activities, and the sensitivity of any customer information at issue. Additionally, various federal banking regulatory agencies, and all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, have enacted data security regulations and laws requiring customer notification in the event of a security breach.
Competition
The company’s primary competition consists of facilitators and providers of legacy payment and consumer loan methods, such as credit and debit cards, including those provided by card issuing banks; technology solutions, including those provided by financial technology or payment companies; mobile wallets, such as Apple and PayPal; and pay-over-time solutions providers, including Block and Klarna.
Trademarks, Trade Names, and Service Marks
Atlanticus owns Aspire, Emerge, Fortiva, Imagine, Salute, Tribute, Fixt, and other trademarks and service marks in the United States (‘U.S.’).
History
The company was founded in 1996. It was incorporated in 2009. The company was formerly known as CompuCredit Holdings Corporation and changed its name to Atlanticus Holdings Corporation in 2012.