In 2011, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians entered the financial services industry by creating Mobiloans, offering small dollar loans to consumers. The company has evolved into a multimillion-dollar corporation, Marshall Pierite, chairman of the Tunica Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, told Native Business. “We’re doing cutting-edge stuff with Mobiloans, and we’re still expanding.”
Pierite is also chairman of the board for Mobiloans, and delivered a keynote address at the Native Business Virtual Summit live broadcast, in which he spoke about innovation in Native American business.
“We put together a strategic plan where we can piggyback off our lending enterprise to create more job opportunities by doing our own collections and also running our own call centers,” he said.
Another online-based revenue stream is on-premise mobile sports betting at Pearl River Resort. The tribe opened the first of its kind independent sportsbook in the country at Pearl River in August 2018. The following year, the tribe added mobile wagering.
The tribe provides permanent, full-time jobs for over 5,000 tribal-member and non-Indian employees, and is a major contributor to the state’s economy. Such success requires broadband connections. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw’s lands cover over 35,000 acres in 10 counties. While much of its reservation is connected to the Internet, several communities are not.
The FCC recently approved the introduction of wireless broadband service in portions of two communities, the Bogue Chitto and Conehatta, enabling the further advancement of business, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for residents.
“As soon as we learned of this license offering from the FCC, we began the application process,” Choctaw Economic Development Director John Hendrix said. “Connectivity is a primary consideration for our tribe, especially with the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
