TREE Company Profile

LendingTree, Inc. operates what we believe to be the leading online loan marketplace for consumers seeking loans and other credit-based offerings. Our online marketplace provides consumers with access to product offerings from over 400 active lenders (which we refer to as "Network Lenders"), including mortgage loans, home equity, reverse mortgage, auto loans, credit cards, personal loans, student loans and small business loans and other related offerings. In addition, we offer tools and resources, including free credit scores, that facilitate comparison shopping for these loans and other credit-based offerings. We seek to match consumers with multiple lenders, who can provide them with competing quotes for the product they are seeking. By providing consumers access to a broad array of credit-based offerings directly from multiple lenders, rather than just multiple quotes from the same lender or indirectly through intermediaries, we believe our marketplace is differentiated from other providers operating loan comparison-shopping marketplaces.

Our strategically designed and executed advertising and marketing campaigns (which we refer to as performance marketing) promote our LendingTree brand and product offerings and are designed to attract consumers to our websites and toll-free telephone numbers. Interested consumers complete inquiry forms, providing detailed information about themselves and the loans or other offerings they are seeking. We refer to such consumer inquiries as loan requests. We then match these loan requests with lenders in our marketplace that are seeking to serve these consumers needs. We generate revenue from these lenders, generally at the time of transmitting a loan request to them, in the form of a match fee. In certain instances outside our mortgage business, we charge other kinds of fees, such as closed loan or closed sale fees. In addition to our primary loan request business, LendingTree also has click and call products for which lenders pay either front-end or back-end fees.
We are continually working to improve the consumer experience. We have made investments in technologically-adept personnel and we use in-market real-time testing to improve our digital platforms. Additionally, we work with our lenders, including providing training and other resources, to improve the consumer experience throughout the loan process. Further, we have been building and improving our My LendingTree platform, which provides a relationship-based consumer experience, rather than just a transaction-based experience.

We currently report our revenues in two product categories: (i) mortgage products and (ii) non-mortgage products. Non-mortgage products include auto loans, credit cards, home equity loans, personal loans, reverse mortgages, small business loans and student loans. Non-mortgage products also include home improvement referrals, and other tools and resources, including credit repair and debt relief services.