CASH 2017 Annual Report

3 PART I Item 1. Business General Meta Financial, a registered unitary savings and loan holding company, was incorporated in Delaware on June 14, 1993, the principal assets of which are all the issued and outstanding shares of the Bank, a federal savings bank, the accounts of which are insured up to applicable limits by the Deposit Insurance Fund (“DIF”) of the FDIC. Unless the context otherwise requires, references herein to the Company include Meta Financial and the Bank, and all subsidiaries of Meta Financial, direct or indirect, on a consolidated basis. The Bank, a wholly-owned full-service banking subsidiary of Meta Financial, is both a community-oriented financial institution offering a variety of financial services to meet the needs of the communities it serves and a payments company providing services on a nationwide basis, as further described below. The business of the Bank consists of attracting retail deposits from the general public and investing those funds primarily in one-to-four family residential mortgage loans, commercial and multi- family real estate, agricultural operations and real estate, construction, consumer loans (including tax refund advance loans), commercial operating loans, and premium finance loans. In addition to originating loans, the Bank also has contracted to sell loans, in this case principally tax refund advance loans, to third party buyers. The Bank also sells and purchases loan participations from time to time to and from other financial institutions, as well as mortgage-backed securities and other investments permissible under applicable regulations. In addition to its lending and deposit gathering activities, the Bank’s various divisions issue prepaid cards, design innovative consumer credit products, sponsor Automatic Teller Machines (“ATMs”) into various debit networks, and offer tax refund-transfer services and other payment industry products and services. Through its activities, the Meta Payment Systems (“MPS”) division of the Bank generates both fee income and low- and no cost deposits for the Bank. On September 8, 2015, the Bank purchased substantially all of the assets and related liabilities of Fort Knox Financial Services Corporation and its subsidiary, Tax Product Services, LLC (together “Refund Advantage”). The assets acquired by MetaBank in the acquisition include the Fort Knox operating platform and trade name, Refund Advantage®, and other assets. On November 1, 2016, the Bank purchased substantially all of the assets and certain liabilities of EPS Financial, LLC ("EPS") from privately held Drake Enterprises, Ltd. ("Drake"). The assets acquired by MetaBank in the EPS acquisition include the EPS trade name, operating platform, and other assets. Also, on December 14, 2016, the Bank purchased substantially all of the assets and specified liabilities of privately-held Specialty Consumer Services LP ("SCS") relating to its consumer lending and tax advance business. All of these transactions expanded the Company’s business into providing tax refund-transfer and lending services for its customers. First Midwest Financial Capital Trust, also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Meta Financial, was established in July 2001 for the purpose of issuing trust preferred securities. InApril 2017, the Company formed a newentity, Meta Capital, LLC, that is awholly-owned service corporation subsidiary of MetaBank. Meta Capital was formed for the purposes of investing in financial technology companies. Meta Financial and the Bank are subject to comprehensive regulation and supervision. See “Regulation” herein. The principal executive office of the Company is located at 5501 South Broadband Lane, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57108. Its telephone number at that address is (605) 782-1767. Market Areas The Bank’s home office is located at 5501 South Broadband Lane, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Banking segment consists of the retail bank, the AFS/IBEX division, as well as other specialty finance loans. The retail bank’s locations include offices in Storm Lake, Iowa, Brookings, South Dakota, Sioux Falls, South Dakota and the Des Moines, Iowa area. AFS/IBEX operates an office in both Dallas, Texas and Newport Beach, California. The Payments segment offers prepaid cards, tax refund- transfer services, and other payment industry products and services nationwide and includes the MPS, Refund Advantage, EPS Financial and SCS divisions. It operates out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with offices in Louisville, Kentucky, Easton, Pennsylvania and Hurst, Texas.