EdFinancial Services is a financial company which provides

student loans A student loan is a type of loan designed to help students pay for post-secondary education and the associated fees, such as tuition, books and supplies, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in the fact that the interest r ...

servicing for 15 of the top 100 lenders in the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, including regional and national banks,

secondary market The secondary market, also called the aftermarket and follow on public offering, is the financial market in which previously issued financial instruments such as stock, bonds, options, and futures are bought and sold. The initial sale of the s ...

s, state agencies and other

student loan A student loan is a type of loan designed to help students pay for post-secondary education and the associated fees, such as tuition, books and supplies, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in the fact that the interest r ...

providers. It is headquartered in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

History

In 1988, CEO William A. Hollin (known as Tony Hollin) launched Educational Funding of the South, going by the name Edsouth, the precursor to EdFinancial Services, in Knoxville. With the backing of local underwriters, Hollin spent six years steadily building the company, going bank to bank buying student loans. In 2004, Edsouth provided student loans mostly in the southeastern US, and had an income of over $150 million. Instead of marketing predominantly to students like some of its competitors, it used a

business-to-business Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) is a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when: * A business is sourcing materials for their production process for output (e.g., a ...

strategy and communicated directly with

financial aid Student financial aid in the United States is funding that is available exclusively to students attending a post-secondary educational institution in the United States. This funding is used to assist in covering the many costs incurred in the p ...

administrators. The strategy worked, with a 70% annual growth rate over a five-year period, and an increase from $3 million to $35 million in annual revenue. In 2002, the company launched eCampusTours.com, which purportedly claims to "allow students to search online for colleges". The website featured 360° by 360° virtual college tours of more than 11,000 college campuses, allowing students to see campus life through

IPIX IPIX is an imaging technology company headquartered in Cohoes, New York. It supplies hardware and software for producing, publishing, embellishing, and collaborating with spherical imagery. History IPIX Corporation, successor-in-interest to Inte ...

virtual tours.{{Ambiguous, date=May 2012 In 2012, Edfinancial was awarded a contract by the US Dept. of Education to service student loans made under the

Federal Direct Student Loan Program The William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program (also called FDLP, FDSLP, and Direct Loan Program) provides "low-interest loans for students and parents to help pay for the cost of a student's education after high school. The lender is the U.S ...

External links

Edfinancial Services
Companies based in Knoxville, Tennessee Education companies of the United States Education finance in the United States