Chris Willis and Jason Cover introduce an upcoming special series of The Consumer Finance Podcast focused on point-of-sale finance, a rapidly evolving sector in consumer financial services.
In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis is joined by Jason Cover to introduce an upcoming special series focused on point-of-sale finance, a rapidly evolving sector in consumer financial services. This teaser provides a sneak peek into increasingly popular topics that will be discussed throughout the series, including innovative point-of-sale finance solutions such as payment methods beyond traditional credit and debit cards, in addition to a diverse range of products and the dynamic interactions between fintech lenders, financial institutions, and merchants. The series will also explore foundational concepts and specific models across various industries, such as home improvements and medical financing, setting the stage for a deep dive into the transformative impact of point-of-sale finance on consumer transactions.
The Consumer Finance Podcast — Explore the Impact of Point-of-Sale Finance in Our Upcoming Series
Host: Chris Willis
Guests: Jason Cover
Date Aired: June 3, 2025
Chris Willis:
Welcome to today's episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast. Today is a teaser for a very exciting special highlight series that we're going to be beginning here on the podcast soon, and that's about Point-of-Sale Finance. Joining me to talk about the upcoming series, and you'll hear him a lot in the upcoming series as well, is my partner, Jason Cover. Jason, thanks for being here today.
Jason Cover:
Hey, thanks, Chris.
Chris Willis:
Point-of-sale finance seems to have become an incredibly important feature of the consumer financial services world, where there's so much consumer demand and so much industry response to that demand. Can you tell us a little bit about your day-to-day practice and how it intersects with this very important area of the financial services economy?
Jason Cover:
Yeah. Chris, I think, we've observed that in about 10 or 15 years ago, cash disbursement lenders paying cash directly to borrowers, really adopted FinTech lending, moved to the online lending space and adopted an array of interesting products. I mean, really in the maybe the last five to 10, that's happened again in the point-of-sale finance space. And by point-of-sale finance, I mean any kind of product that allows you to sort of attach at the register, or on a website at check out, and allows you to pay for a product typically in a non-traditional way, not with a debit card, not with a credit card, although we have a lot of practice with those as well, but in kind of new and novel ways that maybe weren't on websites 15 years ago, but have become very widely adopted in the present.
We've just helped tons of clients with products of that nature in the last five years or so and thought it would be an interesting time to sort of do a series on what we've observed in the types of products in those markets.
Chris Willis:
Yeah, because I don't think there's been any decline in the popularity of those products. In fact, I think if anything, they seem to be getting more popular and therefore, more industry interest in implementing them. I don't know if you see that, but that's my perception.
Jason Cover:
Absolutely. I mean, we have both FinTech lender clients, bank clients, and then also, we have lots of clients that are merchants that have questions about adopting these types of products, or have their own kind of internal credit waterfalls that have layers of different point-of-sale credit products in there. And interestingly enough, we have a Financial Service Industry Group here, and I sort of chair a subcommittee a bit focused on point-of-sale finance. We've really thought a lot about this, particularly, again, in kind of the last three or five years and have observed just the various interactions, not only from the creditor standpoint, or the lender standpoint, but also from the merchant standpoint and the bank standpoint, who may be working with folks offering these types of products as well. It really has become like a quite interesting cutting-edge ecosphere.
Chris Willis:
Yeah, absolutely. That's why I'm so excited to be doing this special series with you and with some of our other colleagues. Just to give the audience a preview, what will this sort of special highlight series on point-of-sale be all about? What will we be covering?
Jason Cover:
Chris, I think we're going to start out kind of broadly establishing the base concepts that people use for point-of-sale finance. That could be anything from direct lending to retail installment contracts, leases, rent to own, buy now, pay later is a very interesting and hot topic these days. But those kind of like, broad categories that maybe aren’t industry-specific, but ways people set up their programs. Once we kind of establish that and get everyone comfortable, we call it like point-of-sale finance basics, then the hope would be to get into specific models or specific product types. Maybe, something related to home improvements, solar financing, you name it. Maybe medical financing, things of that nature. We're kind of hoping to start broadly establishing terms and then really get into the details on various types of products and industry types.
Chris Willis:
Well, I know I'm very excited about it and I think our audience will be as well. The purpose of this was to let our audience know that this special highlight series is coming. Over the coming weeks and months, be looking out for these on your podcast feed, and we'll look forward to presenting those to you for the remainder of this year. Jason, thanks for doing this and we'll be back together with our audience soon.
Jason Cover:
Thanks, Chris. Really excited about this.
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