From Loan Sharks to Loan Minnows- Cashing in on loan affiliate programs

In a country with one of the highest personal savings rate in the world, it is suprising to see how well the consumer finance industry is doing here in Japan. Cashing or card-loan businesses as they are known here is a multi-billion dollar industry. Over the last few years, the industry has undergone alot of regulatory changes (most needed), but the recent capping of interest rates seems to have had the biggest negative affect on those of us that make a living promoting card-loans online. The first thing many affiliate marketers noticed was an overall drop in average commission payouts per transaction. For those who drive traffic to their loan offer sites via direct media buys and keyword ads, the drop hurt most. I also started to notice some of the big finance companies either dropping all of their affiliate programs or consolodating all of the programs into one network. Those of us who manage media sites targeting consumer finance remember the good old days of loan offer commission payouts (last year). When loan companies started using affiliate programs to drive loan applications to their sites, affiliates could expect commissions as high as 30,000 JPY ($300 USD) per completed applications! Before long, every Tom, Dick and Harry with a web page was picking up loan banners and buying up top keywords. Eventually the loan companies began to segment their affiliate commission system to allow high payments for contracted loan applications and lower payouts for completed applications. We even noticed some companies paying very high commissions on the draw down (when the borrower withdraws money from an ATM). There is little danger of loan companies abandoning affiliate marketing especially now since there is a greater demand for new customer acquisition. But the lower commission rates will mean less direct ad spending by super affiliates and more emphasis on building quality informative sites. What can we expect to see in the future for Japanese consumer loan affiliate programs? I expect to see smaller affiliate networks focusing on finance and the larger networks working harder to keep their finance merchants by implementing stricter compliance rules for loan affiliates. The days when loan affiliate programs paid 30,000 JPY per application may be gone, but there is still much gold to mine in this valley.