Meta CEO details growth model for business leaders
By Jodi Schwan
A banking model unique from any other nationwide has allowed Sioux Falls-based Meta Financial Group Inc. to increase its market value from $60 million five years ago to $850 million today, CEO Tyler Haahr told a crowd Monday at the Downtown Sioux Falls Rotary Club.
“We’ve seen rapid growth there,” he said, adding that assets in the same time grew from $1.4 billion to $4.4 billion. Meta is the holding company for MetaBank and its division Meta Payment Systems.
Meta, which entered the prepaid card business in 2004, has diversified into other related niche products in recent years that are finding synergies within the core business.
Prepaid, which includes gift cards, rebate cards and loyalty cards, generates the largest portion of its revenue from general purpose reloadable, or payroll, cards.
Among Meta’s clients is Walmart, which uses Meta-backed cards for its payroll nationwide.
“We don’t do the executives, but there’s 28 percent of the country that doesn’t qualify for a checking account, so we have a solution,” Haahr said. “It’s a much better solution for the company because it reduces costs and administrative time and is much better for the employees because they don’t have to incur high check-cashing fees.”
Meta has 35 percent of the market share in the prepaid industry, he said. Another Sioux Falls-based company, The Bancorp. Inc., also has a 35 percent share, he said. After that, it’s Green Dot with 8 percent and Bank of Internet USA with 4 percent.
“There are really only about four big players in the prepaid space, and interestingly two of those are based here,” Haahr said. “We’ve got a lot of patented processes and systems that would prohibit people from getting into the business.”
Meta holds 45 patents, with two dozen more pending, and has spent more than $50 million building the technology and systems to create “big moats around our business,” he added.
Growth has been bolstered in recent years by Meta’s entry into tax-related services and related acquisitions. The company has seen significant new revenue by using prepaid cards for tax refunds and supporting advance loans and refund transfers.
