Regional Management 's

Small and Large Loans. The installment loan industry is highly fragmented in the nine states in which we operate. We compete with several large competitors operating greater than 800 branch locations each, as well as a handful of private competitors with between 100 and 250 branches in certain of the states in which we operate. We believe that the majority of our competitors are independent operators with generally less than 100 branches. We believe that competition between installment consumer loan companies occurs primarily on the basis of price, breadth of loan product offerings, flexibility of loan terms offered, and the quality of customer service provided. While underbanked customers may also use alternative financial services providers, such as title lenders, payday lenders, and pawn shops, their products offer different terms and typically carry substantially higher interest rates and fees than our installment loans. Accordingly, we believe alternative financial services providers are not an attractive alternative for customers who meet our underwriting standards, which are generally stricter than the underwriting standards of alternative financial services providers. Our small and large loans also compete with pure online lenders, peer-to-peer lenders, and issuers of non-prime credit cards.

Automobile Loans. In the automobile loan industry, we compete with numerous financial service companies, including non-prime auto lenders, dealers that provide financing, captive finance companies owned by automobile manufacturers, banks, and credit unions. Competition among automobile lenders is fierce and is largely on the basis of interest rates charged, the quality of credit accepted, the flexibility of loan terms offered, the speed of approval, and the quality of customer service provided. Much of the automobile loan marketplace has evolved to processing loan applications generated at dealers through online credit application networks such as DealerTrack or RouteOne where prompt service and response times to dealers and their customers are essential to compete in this market.

Retail Loans. In recent years, the retail loan industry has seen an increasing number of lenders dedicated to serving non-prime retail loans enter the market. We also face competition from rent-to-own financing providers and credit card companies. Our retail loans are typically made at competitive rates, and competition is largely on the same basis as automobile loans. Point-of-sale financing decisions must be made rapidly while the customer is on the sales floor. We endeavor to provide responses to customers in less than ten minutes, and we staff RMC Retail, our centralized retail loan underwriting team, with multiple shifts seven days per week during peak retail shopping hours to ensure rapid response times.