Rod Tobiason, Principal

Can you give me a bit of your company history? How did you become involved in the smart payment category?

We have been servicing customers primarily in the car industry for over a decade. We help customers budget by matching a smaller payment to their payday in order to pay off their loan 5 to 8 months sooner, and build equity faster. We help both the customer and the dealership.

The executives prior to SMART Payment Plan successfully ran a financial company helping customers in financial hardship.

What makes your product different from others on the market? How do you differentiate it?

Other payment services have a platform for only debiting customers payments bi-weekly, and they need to start on one particular date regardless of how they get paid or when they get paid. Our service allows the customer to choose a cycle weekly, twice a month or every two weeks based on how the customer gets paid. We also have multiple start dates for them to choose from. We differentiate our service by matching a smaller payment to paydays.

What is your primary sales channel? How do you market to that channel?

Our primary sales channel is the automobile dealerships. Our experienced employees called SMART reps are consulting with them and supporting them.

What are the biggest advantages to this type of payment plan? What would you say the disadvantages are?

The biggest advantages to this type of payment plan for the customer is the convenience, ease of budgeting and paying their loan off faster. For the dealerships, the advantages are customer retention, closing more deals and using our service to sell more products. We don’t believe there is a disadvantage.

In your opinion, where is the greatest growth potential for the smart payment category?

The greatest growth potential is in both the independent dealerships and franchise dealerships.