Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Rick Shane - Jefferies & Company.
Rick Shane - Jefferies & Company
Thank you for taking my question. First of all, I will say, I think that in terms of the discussion of the financials and the discussion of the outlook, you’re frank this is very much appreciated, so thank you. In terms of what’s going on with the internet payday lending, it sound does like haven’t been through a period where losses were declining, you saw a little bit of surprising increasing in credit expenses this quarter.
I’m trying to figure out, if it is a function of changes in regulatory frameworks in Minnesota and Pennsylvania or if you saw something more broadly that’s related what we’re seeing economically and the reason being is that, as we look this going forward we need to ascertain if its related to labor and the continued labor problems in the U.S. or should be focused on regulatory structures?
Daniel Feehan
Yes. Couple of things there Rick, if I can take that question. If you look at the full-year performance for our online segment, our loss rates were down significantly for the full-year. Obviously, as we’ve indicated in the fourth quarter they were little bit higher than we have anticipated. We expected that loss ratio year-over-year that comedown in the quarter and I did not.
My view is, having got into this in a significant amount of detail is that, I am not alone on the broad-based perspective that you just ask about, a good part of this does relate to the fact that with changes that have taken place in the several of these key states. We’ve been enforce to turn back the volume of our business pretty significantly there and so the next component of those existing states in the overall portfolio in the fourth quarter, it was actually lower than we really anticipated.
Those particular states, when you break it out had lower loss rates than the broad portfolio of all our states predominantly because in a number of these states we had been established for an extended period of time and had a very strong mix of the existing customers and not as strong a mix of new customers, which is -- I know you understand Rick, as of loss rates.
So, when you take those states out of the mix pretty roughly in the fourth quarter, our loss rates were not as low as we had plan for then to be and the model it to be, but we have also adjusted our underwriting models in our online business in the fourth quarter as well, we made a few tweaks and changes there. So, again, I’m not seeing things with respect to the fall rates when I getting into the details as it cause me significant alarm that we’re dealing with broader based macro trend in the short-term cash advance arena.
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