Lease-to-purchase specialist Simple Finance, a regular exhibitor at the HFA’s Resource Centers, is changing its name to Acima Credit. Acima will continue to provide lease-purchase financing and service and support to home furnishings retailers and their customers who come from a variety of credit positions. This name change is driven by a trademark issue between the Utah company, and Simple Bank (located in Oregon).
“Simple Bank was awarded the trademark for ‘Simple’ in July 2016,” said Aaron Allred, founder and CEO of Acima Credit. “When our company was founded we didn’t realize we would grow as quickly as we have grown. So we didn’t trademark the name. As a result, we are now Acima Credit. We are doing everything we can to cooperate with Simple Bank to make the name transition as smooth as possible, and to respect their trademark.”
In Portugal, Acima means “rise above,” which company officials say reflects the bank’s core mission to provide point-of-sale finance products through retail merchants to help people rise above their financial constraints. The company firmly believes people are better than their credit scores. That is why Acima offers a lease-to-own service to help people achieve a quality of life they may not have felt was possible.
Over the past three years, Acima has experienced extraordinary growth allowing it to employ nearly 300 people and underwrite hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide. Consumer demand for point-of-sale finance continues to rise at an extraordinary rate. Acima’s proprietary technology enables consumers to finance life’s necessary purchases. Acima believes retail merchants who offer this service will experience an increase in revenue from a customer base that typically may not have been able to get financing otherwise based on their credit scores.
“Lease-purchase financing has become more attractive as many traditional and subprime lenders refuse to extend credit to large portions of the population,” said Allred. “In many cases Acima’s point-of-sale product helps consumers climb the credit ladder as they work to improve their traditional credit scores.”
Acima uses its proprietary technology platform to analyze non-traditional data points when making decisions to extend credit to thousands of customers that are often denied by traditional and subprime finance companies. Acima can do this by accurately determining credit risk without accessing the traditional credit reporting system, allowing it to provide customers (through its retail merchant of choice) with a simple ‘no credit needed’ lease-to-own financing option.
