Why do you think the trucking industry is particularly attractive for a factoring business?

Because there's so much upfront cost. When you consider the cost of buying the capital, the trucks themselves, the tires, the fuel, the insurance—all those things must be established to compete and have companies trust you with their merchandise across the country. At that time, many people, whether from Mexico or other areas, were new to this country and wanted to establish themselves as small businesses. They would take out a loan for a truck, start establishing their business, and then face payments on all that capital. They would make a few runs, have some invoices, and need to turn them around quickly to pay the bills due on all that capital they had to take on.

Can you elaborate on that?

Many of those systems are homegrown and proprietary. For example, J.B. Hunt has some off-the-shelf components, but a lot of their operational stuff was developed in-house over 20 or 30 years. Having the staff on both sides who can discuss integration is crucial. We might use Snowflake, and they might use something else, so we go back and forth on what is required for their system to plug into ours and vice versa, while ensuring cybersecurity.