Simple Finance Changes Name to Acima Credit

January 31, 2017  by Larry Thomas in Business Strategy, Industry   

Company officials said the name change was driven by a trademark dispute with Oregon-based Simple Bank.

“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.”

Acima means “Rise Above,” and reflects the company’s core mission to provide point-of-sale finance products through retail merchants to help people rise above their financial constraints. Allred said the company firmly believes people are better than their credit scores, which is why Acima offers a lease-to-own service to help people achieve a quality of life they may not have felt was possible.

“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 their 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 is able to do this by accurately determining credit risk without accessing the traditional credit reporting system, allowing it to provide customers (through their retail merchant of choice) with a ‘no credit needed’ lease-to-own financing option.