Doing Your Due Diligence
Before you apply for a payday loan, installment loan or other form of short term loan, it pays for a consumer to do their research on www.cashnetusa.com. That way, you know where your loan is coming from and where your assets are going when it comes time to repay the debt.
If you’re considering doing business with CashNet, here’s some information to aid you in your decision. As always, please keep in mind that payday loans in San Diego, installment loans and other short term loan products should be used responsibly. If you enlist the services of a payday lender, you should feel comfortable that they will treat your business in an equally responsible manner.
CashNetUSA.com – Since 2004
According to their Web site at www.cashnetusa.com, CashNetUSA is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The 500-plus-employee payday loan business claims membership in the Community Financial Services Association and the Better Business Bureau, although a search at the BBB Web site reveals that only one of CashNetUSA.com’s locations is a BBB Accredited Business (1600 W 7th Street in Fort Worth, Texas). Yet this doesn’t seem to have hurt customer response, if their claim that they service over 1 million customers is accurate.
CashNetUSA.com’s online ranking at the Web metrics site Compete.com seems to support this idea as well. Their total of 376,735 unique visitors in September 2009 (a 24.66 percent increase over the previous year’s figure) helped contribute to a Compete rank of 4,957, which indicates that CashNetUSA has a fairly significant online presense.
In terms of Web traffic, CashNetUSA.com gets their largest share from consumers who use the Yahoo.com search engine (15.93 percent), while world-leading search engine Google ranks second (9.7 percent). According to Compete.com, the leading search terms that consumers use to locate CashNetUSA.com are “cashnetusa.com” (12.42 percent), “cashnetusa” (11.3 percent) and www.cashnetusa.com (10.22 percent).
Curious Keywords
Interestingly, none of these terms are industry-wide keywords like payday loan, payday loans in San Diego, installment loans or short term loans, which could suggest that the bulk of the traffic CashNetUSA.com receives is from people who are already familiar with the name of the company. For consumers who don’t know company names but know that they want a payday loan, they would be more likely to locate a company like Personal Money Store, which ranks highly for the all-important “payday loan” type of search terms of which more consumers would be aware.
CashNetUSA: Backed by Cash American International
In 2006, CashNetUSA was acquired by Cash America International, Inc., a leading brick and mortar payday lending company. Now they consider themselves one of the industry leaders in secure online lending and credit services. Their services are currently available in over 30 states.
What CashNetUSA.com Offers
Consumers looking for payday loans in San Diego are asked to use CashNetUSA’s quick and easy online application form. Thirty-minute approval decisions are advertised, and approved loans are typically funded on the next business day. Faxing information is rarely required and applicants needn’t have a “perfect” FICO score, as CashNetUSA.com (as well as other online lenders and loan aggregators) tend to use sub-prime monitors like Teletrack to make lending determinations. New customers can receive up to $700 via direct deposit into an active checking account, while repeat customers may be approved for more. Depending upon the laws that exist in the consumer’s state, the maximum receivable loan amount can be as high as $1,500. Loan fees vary by total loan amount received; special programs that grant up to a 30 percent discounts and $20 referral credit are available for returning customers.
CashNetUSA Loan Types
The specific types of short term loans that CashNetUSA offers are the payday loan, installment loan and credit service organization loan. The availability of each varies by state.
payday loans in San Diego are short term loans, relatively small in principal, which typically come to maturity on the consumer’s next payday (from eight to 25 days away). Some states allow loan extensions.
Installment loans tend to carry a higher principal balance and are repaid over a period of four to five months. Early repayment is possible without penalty; in some cases, CashNetUSA.com claims that a portion of fees are refundable to the consumer when early payment occurs.
Credit service organization loans are essentially third-party loans. A lender in CashNetUSA.com’s network will fund the payday loan. Repayment is due on the customer’s following payday.
What You Need to Qualify with CashNetUSA.com
In order for a consumer to be eligible to receive funds via CashNetUSA.com, the following conditions must be met:
- The consumer must have an active checking account
- They must have held their current job for at least one month
- The applicant must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident
- Applicant must be at least 18 years old
CashNetUSA Repayment Options
Payday, installment or credit service organization loan repayment is generally taken via ACH payment. This operates in the same matter as a paper check, but the deduction is automatic at the agreed upon maturity date. If sufficient funds are not available, “CashNetUSA can and will re-present the ACH Authorization to (the consumer’s) bank,” according to their Web site.
General Repayment Options
- Pay in Full: On the due date for the payday loan, the balance is paid off completely.
- Extend Your Loan: If the consumer’s state allows, only the loan fee need be paid at maturity. The principal is then repaid on the consumer’s next payday. An additional fee will apply for this service.
- Make Partial Payment and Extend: Similar to the previous option, but a portion of the principal is also paid at the initial maturity date.
Loan extensions, if needed, must be requested in order for the extension to take effect. This can be done via the Web site, E-mail or a telephone call. Credit card payments can also be arranged. If another loan is desired, a customer must generally wait at least two business days before the new loan can be issued (as it generally takes that long for ACH payment on the previous payday loan to clear the bank). See CashNetUSA.com for more details.
Revoking an ACH Payment?
It should be noted that this cannot be done until a loan has been paid in full. CashNetUSA reserves the right to deny revoking an ACH at an earlier time. This is in accordance with the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (ETTA), where “a lender cannot require a consumer to repay a loan by means of preauthorized electronic funds transfers as a condition to approving the consumer’s loan.”
As CashNetUSA’s one-time lump ACH payment does not meet the EFTA’s definition of “preauthorized electronic funds transfer” in terms of it being a “repayment of loans by electronic means on a preauthorized, recurring basis,” CashNetUSA is legally entitled to deny requests to revoke an ACH payment before final loan repayment. Some exceptions for written notices may apply.
CashNetUSA.com Financial Information
12-month share price comparison of CashNetUSA.com, a payday loan company. (Credit: thestreet.com)
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Listed on the New York Stock Exchange as CSH, Financial, CashNetUSA.com (at this writing; financials update dynamically) is trading at $32.64 per share. Over the course of the past year to date, this reflects a 19.78 percent increase. The price-to-earnings ratio is currently 12.33, which compares somewhat unfavorably to the sector average (13.20) and the S&P 500 average (51.90).
The compound annual growth rate for revenue, net income and earnings per share hovers around the 20 percent mark (20 percent for revenue, 22 percent for net income and 21 percent for earnings per share). TheStreet.com’s stock rating screener gives CashNetUSA a “HOLD C+” rating, which could be the buzzword for the best of payday loan companies these days, considering possible rate cap legislation that has been considered by the federal government.
