Take a $10M pool of receivables earning 18% a year gross. On $1.5M of the originator’s own money, that is an 18.2% return.
The 4% loss rate above is an assumption, not a measurement. It is the single largest swing factor in this table — every percentage point of loss is $100,000. See Disclosures.

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How to read it

The three largest claims on pool income are, in order: the investors, the credit losses, and the originator’s own running costs. PRISM’s fees are the smallest line. What is left is the originator’s profit. It is the residual — which is exactly why the originator is the party that must hold first loss. It has the most to lose from a bad book and the most to gain from a good one.

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Why the asset yield has to be high

Work backwards from this table and the constraint is obvious: the investor line is largely fixed by what capital costs elsewhere, and the loss line is set by the book. A pool earning 12% gross cannot fill in the same rows. See why the asset has to earn 15% or more.