The nonprofit healthcare sector is especially sensitive to public scrutiny, with federal and state regulators monitoring their charitable activities and media outlets actively reporting aggressivecollection practices.
Although the top eight established consumer-finance companies control roughly 80% of the market, their reputations have been hurt by scandals over aggressivecollection methods and outrageous interest rates.
This cuddlier image has helped to dispel nasty memories of the 1970s and 1980s, when Japan's personal-loan industry was a byword for exorbitant interest rates and aggressivecollection methods.