Before a missed payment became your problem

What Assured Card did

A missed payment can raise what a borrower pays: a card issuer, for example, can move a late account to a higher interest rate, often called a penalty APR.^⁠[6][7] Assured Card was built to stop that escalation before it started.^⁠[1] Its credit line stepped in before a missed payment could trigger interest increases or credit adjustments, and covered the payment so that the customer’s credit standing and rate were preserved.^⁠[2]

It was designed to cover a missed card payment before penalties applied.^⁠[2] No earlier product of this kind was found in the research for this record.

The company described its service in five parts:

Cover missed payments

A credit line that stepped in before a missed payment triggered interest increases or credit adjustments, protecting the customer’s financial standing before problems started.^⁠[2]

Account managers

Banks adjust interest rates to manage risk. The company’s account managers worked with each customer on consolidation and coverage options, with the aim of reducing the customer’s interest burden.

A six-step plan

A written plan, a priority score card and the tools to track and achieve financial goals: the 6-Step Financial Stability Program.^⁠[2]

Mentors

Access to mentors who had faced similar financial pressures: real advice from people who found solutions and came out the other side.

Referrals

A member who referred others had the $29 annual fee waived, and referrals beyond the fee raised the member’s payment limits.^⁠[2]

The 6-Step Financial Stability Program

Around the credit line ran a structured program for debt stability, closer to a debt-management and credit-counselling plan than to a lender’s product.^⁠[2] The company described it as a system to help customers reach lasting financial stability and work-life balance. It had six steps, taken in order:^⁠[2]

1. Simple Income Expense Number: Establish your baseline: understand exactly where you stand financially before making any decisions.
2. Expense Reduction Rewards List: Identify what can be reduced and create a reward system that makes cutting expenses feel like winning.
3. High Interest Debt Reduction: Target the debt that costs the most first. The company’s account managers found the options that fit each customer’s situation.
4. Safety Net Plan Amount: Build the buffer that prevents a missed payment from becoming a crisis. Defined, achievable, yours.
5. Time Benefits Priority Score Card: Score your financial priorities by time and benefit. Know exactly what to focus on and when.
6. Work Life Financial Rewards & Goals: Tie your financial plan to the life you want. Real goals, real rewards, real momentum.

The six steps in full, each with practical guidance for today and its sources

Figures, in the company’s words

Two figures appeared in Assured Card’s own materials. The first is the company’s statement, and the record gives it in the same way; the second is the year of the founding, which the record also gives.

“Our credit & debt payment solution successfully assisted over 10,000 customers from 1994–1999…”

Maynard L. Dokken, President and CEO

What came next

Assured Credit was the name of the development work that followed: the backend and an on-site terminal that customers could use, the advanced version of the terminal Assured Card had envisioned for applications.^⁠[5] Its pages are kept on assuredcredit.co.

CreditAssure was the company formed while Assured Card’s work was moving into a public company, by Maynard L. Dokken’s account. Milinx’s filings name it Credit Assure International, Inc., an affiliated company controlled by Maynard L. Dokken.^⁠[12][13] Its record is on creditassure.co.

On 15 March 1999 Milinx took an exclusive licence of the CreditAssure trademark from Credit Assure International, Inc., an affiliated company.^⁠[12] The licence included distribution and marketing rights for the United States and Canada.^⁠[12] On 15 October 1999 Milinx acquired Credit Assure International’s assets, described as intangible property including the worldwide rights to the CreditAssure trademark.^⁠[14] The price was 50,000 common shares; the cost was expensed.^⁠[14]

The CREDIT ASSURE applications were in Assured Card Corporation’s name, and the Canadian one was assigned directly to Milinx.^⁠[15][16] Assured Card Corporation, a Delaware company registered in British Columbia on 14 October 1998, remained a separate company; Milinx’s filings of October 2000 and November 2001 call it “currently inactive”.^{⁠[17][12][13]}

What Milinx built is recorded on milinx.co, and the dated facts of all four are in The record, 1994–2002.

The founder

Assured Card was founded by Maynard L. Dokken, who was its President and CEO.^⁠[1] It is one of the ventures in his record, after SuccessInc and before Assured Credit and Milinx.^⁠[18] Assured Card in the record sets out the company’s history with its sources.