The quarterly Finance Commission Meeting will be this Friday, mostly information will be reported for September to August 2018 vs. 2019…that is their fiscal year.

OCCC will report that:

·         Examinations were down in 2019, went from 638 to 475.

·         CABs went to the bottom in terms of acceptable level of compliance…due to lower examination volume.  This likely means they will get back to CABs soon with a increase in examinations for us.

·         Zero investigations were done in the last year, versus 3 in the prior year.

·         Complaints for payday: down, from 114 to 97.  (down 15%!)

·         Complaints for title loans:  down, from 85 to 59. (down 30%!)

Market Trends for Q1-Q2 of 2019 vs. 2018 were reported versus the fiscal calendar info above:

·         Repo totals are trending upwards and it is thought by the OCCC to coincide with longer payment terms. This was a specific comment, outside of the charts provided and that makes the topic significant. 

·         The OCCC is monitoring this issue to see if it levels out or needs compliance emphasis so head’s up there.  Repo is precarious and they do tend to look deeply into it.  Be 100% dialed in with your compliance measures on this topic, make all of the proper disclosures, send the notices at the correct intervals, and maintain records with excellent organization.

·         # Customers obtaining unsecured loans went up!  In 2018 it was 787,700 and in 2019 it was 799,292 or 1.5% increase.

·         # Customers obtaining title loans went down.  In 2018 it was 135,619 and in 2019 it was 129,163 or 4% decrease.

·         Repossessions went up 32% to 22,005 from 16,620.  These have been hovering in the 16-18k range since 2015 but 2014 had 20,879.

·         There are now just 1,756 locations reporting activity.  Down from 1,832 which is a 4% decrease.

Here is a link to the packet (go to page 249): https://www.fc.texas.gov/sites/default/files/2019-10/101819-fc-packet.pdf This blog post was written by Michael Brown, President of CAB Consulting and the Texas Organization of Financial Service Centers.  He can be reached at 214-293-8676, or Michael@CreditAccessBusiness.com.