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Jacksonville,
FL – March 4, 2002
The Deferred
Presentment Database in the state of Florida went live
on February 26, 2002, three days ahead of the March 1,
2002 deadline set by the legislature. This puts Florida
into a national leadership position regarding consumer
protection and industry cooperation in the “Payday Loan”
industry. It is also one of the quickest and most
successful implementations of such a wide-ranging
program ever accomplished within the state. The new
statutes (Chapter 560, Part IV), created as a result of
a Senate Bill (SB 1526) in the summer session of 2001,
puts controls in place that both help the industry
identify potential risks and more importantly attempts
to limit how much liability individual consumers can
take on. That is why both the Payday Loan Industry and
consumer advocates are heralding this program as a model
for the rest of the country.
The State of
Florida has defined a Deferred Presentment Provider (“DPP”)
as a person who provides currency or a payment
instrument in exchange for a person's check and agrees
to hold the person's check for a period of time prior to
presentment, deposit, or redemption. Once licensed with
the Department of Banking and Finance (the “DBF”), DPPs
are required to process their customer transactions
through the Deferred Presentment Transaction System (DPTS),
available at
,to verify the eligibility of a consumer to conduct the
transaction and to receive and authorization for the
transaction. Customer support and training information
are also available at this website address and via the
toll free number at 1-877-FLA-DPP1.
This
revolutionary system and the comprehensive
infrastructure to support the statewide operations has
been created and implemented in record time. Because of
the aggressive timetable demanded by the legislation,
the DBF decided to take a creative approach to implement
this program. The DBF established a partnership with a
commercial firm, selected by a streamlined competitive
bid process. With no funding to pay for the development
of the program, the DBF contracted for all development
and support for the life cycle of the program to be paid
from the revenues that will be generated from the fees
to be charged per transaction for the use of the DPTS.
This gave the vendor selected significant incentive to
deliver a quality program, on time, and at the lowest
cost.
The program
began general operation three days ahead of the required
deadline with great success. Of approximately 170
registered and licensed companies within the state, less
than 30 companies representing less than 15% of the
locations within the state, were not in compliance
within the first 5 days of operation—some of those have
indicated that they plan to exit the business. More than
320,000 transactions have been registered, at more than
800 locations statewide. These transactions represent
almost 140,000 different individuals; and although most
only have a single transaction at a time, almost 14% had
multiple transaction opened when the database went live.
This more than vindicates the advocates—this program
will protect both consumers and providers.
Veritec
Solutions, L.L.C. (“Veritec”) of Jacksonville, FL is the
vendor selected by the DBF, to implement and operate the
database and the associated support operations. Veritec
can be contacted at 1-877-FLA-DPP1 or at
.
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