On December 17, the firm announced the completion of the acquisition of 82 financial services stores in Southeast Florida, bringing the total number of financial service stores in Florida to 105.

- The firm is actively involved together with the State and National Trade Association in helping customers and employees educate policy makers on the value of the short term credit products and the appropriate and responsible regulation of our industry.
- In November, researchers at the Federal Reserve released a study which included the consumers in states such as Georgia and North Carolina where short-term credit has been restricted or eliminated.
- Those concerned were experiencing significantly greater financial difficulties in the form of more bounced checks and more personal bankruptcy files.
- This then correlates to the Federal Reserve’s earlier research that included wider availability of short-term credit as measured by the number of offices relative to population made from better financial welfare for the customer base.

Regulations In Canada:

- The provinces of Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan have already passed their legislation and are expected to set maximum allowable rates in the next few months.
- In Alberta, the province believes that existing legislation already complies with the requirements of the Federal law and is targeting to separate to mid 2008.
- In British Columbia, they have recently passed legislation in October of 2007 and bureaucrats in that province have indicated the rate caps established in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and Alberta will be examined in reference to their approach to establishing rates.
- In British Columbia, rates are anticipated to be established some time in the summer of 2008 while in New Brunswick, the province introduced legislation in November 2007 which is expected to be passed into law some time later this spring.

Fiscal 2008 Outlook:

- The firm reaffirmed the guidance of revenue between $510 million and $530 million.
- Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $145 million and $152 million.
- Income before income taxes is expected to be from $91 million to $96 million.
- Diluted earnings per share are expected to come in at between $2.15 and $2.30.

Key questions and answers from the second quarter earnings call conducted by Dollar Financial Corp. (DLLR: chart) on January 31, 2008.

John Hecht (JMP Securities): Can you tell us what the organic state of the US payday lending environment is?
Jeff Weiss: We have gotten that back to where it was prior to the change. Now there are these pricing differences there, so yield is not quite as high as it was. The aggregate dollar revenue was not as high as it was.

John Hecht (JMP Securities): What happens in the UK and Canada from a tax refund perspective and how does it affect volumes in the near term?

Don Gayhardt: In the UK, there is no tax season in the UK. In Canada, there is a tax refund season which is going up currently. In the US, there was a delay in IRS issuance because of some complication of calculating eight alternative minimum tax.

The impact of that seasonality has declined. There has been some moderate decline in portfolio size in the US, less so in Canada because people get their refund checks and pay down their loans, a modest up tick in check cashing fees although that has smoothed out quite a bit as more and more merchants are offering deals if you bring in your tax check.

John Rowan (Sidoti & Company): What effects do you think you will see from this Federal Stimulus Package if these rebate checks go out?

Jeff Weiss: Depending on what the permutations of the program is and how the checks are mailed, we expect to see the an increase in check cashing fees and people using the proceed of their rebate to pay down debt.

John Rowan (Sidoti & Company): What were the new hedges that you were putting on?

Jeff Weiss: We have hedges for the quarter that we are in now, our fiscal third quarter and the fourth quarter. We bought them when the rates were very high in terms of the weakness of the US dollar. We typically hedge out at least six months and generally no further than a year that the cost just gets really prohibitive to go out much that long.

Bob Napoli (Piper Jaffray): Are you seeing some of the effects from the fallout in the housing market in Florida and is that going to set you back at all as far as attaining profitability in the US?

Jeff Weiss: Florida seems to be fine particularly since the preponderance of the stores we have in Florida, the overwhelming majority on the East Coast and while there was an enormous speculative room in the panhandle in Western Florida and particularly in Miami, our stores are cited in areas that were already established residential and business neighborhoods.

There is a labor force that flocked to Florida and became fully employed in Florida because of the construction boom and we have not seen any full work so far. What would happen is we would see a modest decline in the face amount of checks because employers would not have to tick so vigorously for labor, it was pro-employment in higher paying construction jobs and a similar small decline in the number of checked cash over time.

Bob Napoli (Piper Jaffray): On acquisitions, are you working on a number of smaller deals in various markets at this point?

Jeff Weiss: The acquisition pipeline is quite full. I hope the exit of more or less of private equity from the sector enabled strategic buyers to look at possibilities much more realistically.