1 00:00:01.800 --> 00:00:04.140 Sean Murray: Hello, everybody, my name is Sean Murray, welcome 2 00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:08.310 back. Today I'm here with Eyal Levy of banana exchange. He is 3 00:00:08.310 --> 00:00:10.980 the CEO. Eyal thanks for being here. 4 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:14.279 Eyal Levy: Thank you very much for inviting me there. 5 00:00:14.490 --> 00:00:16.500 Sean Murray: Of course, can you tell me a little bit about your 6 00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:19.230 background and also about what banana exchange does. 7 00:00:20.860 --> 00:00:22.630 Eyal Levy: Basically, I'm an electronic engineer by 8 00:00:22.630 --> 00:00:26.290 profession. And I used to represent an Israeli company in 9 00:00:26.290 --> 00:00:31.270 the US that solve the very sophisticated electronics, 10 00:00:32.350 --> 00:00:38.710 gadgets to the US Special Forces, CIA, FBI, US Air Force 11 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:45.610 as such. And by accident, I got into a meeting with an ex CIA 12 00:00:45.610 --> 00:00:49.330 agent that said, Eyal, I want you to be partner with me and 13 00:00:49.330 --> 00:01:00.310 start to sell second generation equipment to countries that are 14 00:01:00.370 --> 00:01:03.790 friendly to the US. And I said, but how are we going to start 15 00:01:03.790 --> 00:01:07.060 the company? So he said, I'm going to the US government owes 16 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:11.860 me $230,000, which is right now around $2 million dollars. And 17 00:01:11.860 --> 00:01:16.540 they'll pay over 180 days, maybe somebody could finance that. And 18 00:01:16.540 --> 00:01:19.690 I spoke to my accountant and asked him that what we want to 19 00:01:19.690 --> 00:01:22.480 do, and he said, You know, that's called factoring. I 20 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:25.720 didn't know the word factoring, because I'm electronic engineer 21 00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:29.080 at the time. And they said, No, no, you don't say we don't want 22 00:01:29.080 --> 00:01:32.140 to manufacture anything factoring manufacturing, we all 23 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:35.410 laughed. But a month later, I started the factoring business 24 00:01:35.410 --> 00:01:40.510 for distressed companies. And it was 20 years in business. And I 25 00:01:40.510 --> 00:01:44.980 was the the leader of the factoring in the second niche 26 00:01:45.160 --> 00:01:48.850 factory, I developed the software, which allows us to 27 00:01:48.910 --> 00:01:53.560 allowed this time to do volume of 250 million a year with zero 28 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:57.520 losses. And that's the basis of banana exchange, we shall 29 00:01:57.880 --> 00:01:58.990 describe later on. 30 00:01:59.970 --> 00:02:02.610 Sean Murray: Wow. And how did you come up with that name, 31 00:02:02.610 --> 00:02:03.870 Banana Exchange. 32 00:02:06.210 --> 00:02:09.390 Eyal Levy: That is a funny story. When I was young, my mother was 33 00:02:09.390 --> 00:02:12.300 a Mossad agent and my father was in the Israeli military, we were 34 00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:17.310 sent to Ethiopia, to assist Haile Selassie, the Emperor. And 35 00:02:18.180 --> 00:02:21.330 at the time, I was very lonely. I was four years there I was 36 00:02:21.330 --> 00:02:25.560 young kid. And my parents said, What do you want to be happy? So 37 00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:29.940 I said, I want a monkey. So they bought me a monkey. And I got 38 00:02:29.940 --> 00:02:33.480 this monkey, and this monkey, his name was Jojo. We call them 39 00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:39.270 Jojo. And then when I started banana, my factoring business 40 00:02:39.300 --> 00:02:42.960 before Banana was called the Platinum Funding Group that was 41 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:47.790 very serious, then, you know, as you get older, and I said, Okay, 42 00:02:47.790 --> 00:02:51.630 let's have some fun. So I said, banana for JoJo, and we have a 43 00:02:51.630 --> 00:02:55.140 video of JoJo, explaining what we do on our website. 44 00:02:57.120 --> 00:02:58.950 Sean Murray: Okay, well, it all makes sense. Now I took I 45 00:02:58.950 --> 00:03:06.060 totally get it. So you fund funders. And I imagine in doing 46 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:08.520 that, you know, you're doing large transactions, there must 47 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:13.320 be a type of risk analysis that goes with that. So what kind of 48 00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:16.260 underwriting do you do in order to work with a partner? 49 00:03:17.110 --> 00:03:21.100 Eyal Levy: So we're gonna design this whole concept that the the, 50 00:03:21.130 --> 00:03:27.700 the the theory behind the concept was to allow the medium 51 00:03:27.700 --> 00:03:35.050 to small size MCAs to be able to fund them, they can't find 52 00:03:35.050 --> 00:03:39.310 anyone, hedge funds won't look at them and other large, funders 53 00:03:39.310 --> 00:03:42.730 wont to look at them. And they really wanted that they're about 54 00:03:42.730 --> 00:03:47.890 over 2000 MCAs funders in the US Small ones. And about 10, large 55 00:03:47.890 --> 00:03:51.010 ones, you know, the larger ones, we all know, they're funded by 56 00:03:51.010 --> 00:03:53.560 the big hedge funds, and the small ones have nowhere else to 57 00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:57.790 go. So I decided to go after that niche. The the issue with 58 00:03:57.790 --> 00:04:00.970 that niche is that you have to monitor it very closely. So we 59 00:04:00.970 --> 00:04:04.060 develop the software, which is based on the software that they 60 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:08.050 had before that basically it's connected to the HGH provider of 61 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:15.310 the MCA and through that we control and view the clients, 62 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:19.780 the merchants themselves and the payment methodology of the of 63 00:04:19.780 --> 00:04:25.180 the merchants. The underwriting that we do is very simple. 64 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:30.250 Basically, the merchant, the MCA has to be in business for at 65 00:04:30.250 --> 00:04:37.450 least six months. Or if he had a prior Inc prior history. We 66 00:04:37.450 --> 00:04:41.080 would use that some come from large companies that we would 67 00:04:41.080 --> 00:04:48.460 use that we make sure that his merchant he has a certain amount 68 00:04:48.460 --> 00:04:52.630 of merchants volume has to be at least half a million dollars in 69 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:59.080 RPR. And that's it and there are no other user sees on this or 70 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:04.060 liens on this company, that's it. The rest, we will look at 71 00:05:04.060 --> 00:05:07.510 the MCA at the merchants themselves. We don't underwrite 72 00:05:07.510 --> 00:05:14.140 the merchant. That's how we mark our client is underwritten by 73 00:05:14.140 --> 00:05:18.130 these factors, but the merchants that are have a different 74 00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:24.970 criterias such as we bite bolts of receivables of our RTR. So 75 00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:29.140 I'll give you an example. Let's take $2 million of our RTR that 76 00:05:29.140 --> 00:05:35.890 has an average of 200 merchants in the 2 million, we will 77 00:05:35.890 --> 00:05:39.760 advance anywhere from half a million to which is 25% up to 78 00:05:39.790 --> 00:05:47.680 35-40% sometimes of that. And we would make sure that our 79 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:54.460 exposure never reaches half a million dollars 50% of the art 80 00:05:54.490 --> 00:05:59.230 of the existing RTR because the RTR goes down. And we got to 81 00:05:59.230 --> 00:06:01.750 make sure that we are always covered. So we're always covered 82 00:06:01.750 --> 00:06:07.180 by at least 50% of the RTR. And then there are other rules, such 83 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:13.480 as they can have concentration of over 25% in specific state. 84 00:06:14.320 --> 00:06:19.420 RTR has limits of $70,000, they could be higher, but we will 85 00:06:19.450 --> 00:06:25.090 limit the our exposure to 70 and so on and so forth. 86 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:29.279 Sean Murray: That's great. Now does it matter if the funder is 87 00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:33.659 originating deals with ISOs versus in house? Do you look at 88 00:06:33.659 --> 00:06:34.289 that at all? 89 00:06:34.960 --> 00:06:38.080 Eyal Levy: No. I mean, we don't care where it's coming from. And 90 00:06:38.080 --> 00:06:42.160 later on, I can explain me how banana exchange works. And we 91 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:46.270 would introduce to the market in the near future, some additional 92 00:06:46.270 --> 00:06:54.430 features that will work and we'll invite the, the ISOs and 93 00:06:54.430 --> 00:06:57.130 the merchants themselves to the platform. So basically what 94 00:06:57.130 --> 00:07:00.280 banana exchange is all about and that's the reason for for it to 95 00:07:00.280 --> 00:07:03.010 be called banana exchange. Why the exchange people ask me why 96 00:07:03.010 --> 00:07:08.770 they exchange, the exchange comes to fill out what you did 97 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:16.420 in for the MCA market. On paper in on information, I'm trying to 98 00:07:16.420 --> 00:07:21.880 do with the with the actual money. So you deal with 99 00:07:21.880 --> 00:07:24.940 information, I deal with money, it's the same thing. Because 100 00:07:24.940 --> 00:07:26.050 what I want to do, yeah, 101 00:07:26.050 --> 00:07:26.830 Sean Murray: I totally get it. 102 00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:30.260 Eyal Levy: I'm creating a platform, the platform exists. 103 00:07:30.290 --> 00:07:34.400 Okay. The first item that we introduced to the market is the 104 00:07:34.400 --> 00:07:38.240 funding. First of all, we give them funding. What else do they 105 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:41.270 need? They need from time to time they need a syndication, 106 00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:44.660 right. They need syndicates, we allow them to bring in 107 00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:48.350 syndicates, we bring them we put the syndicates and together. The 108 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:53.060 beauty of this is that we allow the syndicates, the syndicates 109 00:07:53.060 --> 00:07:56.600 are relying on us because we control we can control the a ACH 110 00:07:56.690 --> 00:08:01.280 if there is a problem. So that's why the syndicates love us. And 111 00:08:01.280 --> 00:08:05.480 then the last item that we're going to bring is the ISOs, we 112 00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:09.320 will have a section for the ISOs. And the ISO comes into our 113 00:08:09.320 --> 00:08:12.950 system presses the button that says okay, I'm an ISO. And then 114 00:08:12.950 --> 00:08:16.160 the system approaches him and says, Do you have your own deal? 115 00:08:16.220 --> 00:08:21.230 Or do you want deals, if he has his own deal, he pays us 1% to 116 00:08:21.230 --> 00:08:26.450 the platform. And then we introduce him to several MCA 117 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:31.640 clients. And the clients have to respond within an hour. And then 118 00:08:31.700 --> 00:08:34.010 if he doesn't have a deal, and he wants to build from us, we 119 00:08:34.010 --> 00:08:38.690 also have deals that we we approach the merchants ourselves 120 00:08:38.900 --> 00:08:45.290 and give that to the ISO to work on. So we will give him a deals 121 00:08:45.290 --> 00:08:49.880 as well on that he will pay us a little bit more. So everybody 122 00:08:49.880 --> 00:08:55.730 benefits. So the beauty for the MCA himself, funder is that he 123 00:08:55.730 --> 00:09:00.260 has everything he has money from us. He has distribution. He has 124 00:09:00.380 --> 00:09:04.910 syndication he has everything that he needs he has in one 125 00:09:04.910 --> 00:09:09.050 place. That's basically the concept. 126 00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:13.560 Sean Murray: So you mentioned that it requires a bit of 127 00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:16.800 monitoring, because it's typically not the top 10 largest 128 00:09:16.800 --> 00:09:22.320 funders, and that you have an exchange and an ISO can place a 129 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:25.530 deal on it and all these different things. I imagine that 130 00:09:25.530 --> 00:09:30.600 there must be some technology that goes into managing all 131 00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:34.380 this. Are you using any special technology to manage your 132 00:09:34.380 --> 00:09:35.010 platform? 133 00:09:35.900 --> 00:09:39.140 Eyal Levy: We the technology that we're using the base of the 134 00:09:39.140 --> 00:09:41.210 technology is what they developed in the factoring 135 00:09:41.210 --> 00:09:45.500 business many many years ago and right now there's a lot of most 136 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:47.990 of the small factoring companies in the US are using my 137 00:09:47.990 --> 00:09:53.150 technologies that they developed 30 years ago. And we are adding 138 00:09:53.150 --> 00:09:56.030 additional technology. I'll give you an example of a technology. 139 00:09:56.060 --> 00:09:59.510 We're going to introduce the market next month. We are 140 00:09:59.510 --> 00:10:04.820 testing it right now with our cotton with our customers, the 141 00:10:04.850 --> 00:10:10.670 we will allow it's a technology that was developed by a Israeli 142 00:10:11.660 --> 00:10:18.230 intelligence unit is from the Israeli Defense Forces. And what 143 00:10:18.230 --> 00:10:24.440 it is, it's the company itself is called voice sense, as they 144 00:10:24.440 --> 00:10:30.890 use vocalist and signal processing link to data science 145 00:10:30.890 --> 00:10:38.000 and advanced machine learning and AI to produce predictive the 146 00:10:38.030 --> 00:10:44.210 behavior analysis. And it's amazing because they are not 147 00:10:45.470 --> 00:10:56.840 listening to the content of the speech at all, but the the they, 148 00:10:57.080 --> 00:11:05.150 they just look at the, the, the pitch and the frequency and the 149 00:11:05.150 --> 00:11:12.650 spaces and the poses that are done within the within the the 150 00:11:12.650 --> 00:11:18.050 conference. So what we'll do is the client will have a will 151 00:11:18.050 --> 00:11:24.410 download an application on his phone, our client, and he will 152 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:30.470 talk to his customer on the phone. And he needs to speak on 153 00:11:30.470 --> 00:11:34.460 the phone at least 40 seconds. And it could be in any language 154 00:11:34.520 --> 00:11:39.410 was tested in English, Spanish, Chinese, whatever language you 155 00:11:39.410 --> 00:11:46.070 want Arabic, Hebrew or whatever language and then it will in a 156 00:11:46.280 --> 00:11:50.150 minute later, I mean, in a half later, you will get the report, 157 00:11:51.110 --> 00:11:56.270 a written report if this client is trustworthy, and if he's 158 00:11:56.630 --> 00:11:59.840 going to pay him back or not. It's amazing if technology was 159 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:04.670 tested them in various countries around the world with many many 160 00:12:04.670 --> 00:12:09.440 languages. And it works amazingly, we we got the 161 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:14.930 exclusive rights for it in the US for MCA on the MCA market and 162 00:12:14.930 --> 00:12:19.250 factoring market. And we'll have people marketing to the industry 163 00:12:19.250 --> 00:12:24.710 very soon. It's we're dealing with Intellectual Property of 164 00:12:24.800 --> 00:12:32.030 intellectual property 23 patents and six pending ones. And the 165 00:12:32.030 --> 00:12:38.660 beautiful thing is that it works it works on on frequency on the 166 00:12:38.660 --> 00:12:45.470 beach, on the spaces, on the houses. And the beauty is that 167 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:52.790 on the range of the cause, if it's a yes or no, we're good 168 00:12:52.790 --> 00:12:57.200 that there are 95% accuracy. So 169 00:12:57.270 --> 00:12:59.430 Sean Murray: I feel like I want to run my own voice through it. 170 00:13:00.450 --> 00:13:01.800 Find out how I do 171 00:13:02.920 --> 00:13:06.160 Eyal Levy: Thats what we did you know, now Now listen to this. 172 00:13:06.610 --> 00:13:10.180 Now we have a client, one of our clients, several of them, but 173 00:13:10.180 --> 00:13:19.330 one major one has about I think 225 ISOs in house. Okay, so they 174 00:13:19.330 --> 00:13:23.860 make phone calls. What the system does, it gives you at the 175 00:13:23.860 --> 00:13:26.860 end of the report, you get a report to the to have the 176 00:13:26.860 --> 00:13:31.030 conversation with two sections. One is for the guy that you're 177 00:13:31.030 --> 00:13:35.200 talking to, right. And the other one is how did your salesperson 178 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:40.540 do? Okay? Could you be more aggressive? Was it slow? It's 179 00:13:40.540 --> 00:13:45.520 amazing. It's unbelievable. I'm believing so we think that this 180 00:13:45.520 --> 00:13:49.270 really would help the industry. Because if usually people have 181 00:13:49.270 --> 00:13:54.370 like five to 15% default rate, right? Maybe now with Corona, 182 00:13:54.370 --> 00:13:59.080 they had more okay. But usually between five and 15 if we can 183 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:08.170 reduce it from top to lower numbers. That's and the cost is 184 00:14:08.170 --> 00:14:12.040 nothing we're giving it right now to our, to our clients for 185 00:14:12.040 --> 00:14:18.130 free, for free. And later and for others, the charges is 186 00:14:18.130 --> 00:14:21.910 minimal, you know, it's it's a very small amount. And if it 187 00:14:21.910 --> 00:14:25.420 works, and it people will see that it works. They'd love it 188 00:14:25.420 --> 00:14:29.560 and say, you know, it's fantastic. This is one of the 189 00:14:29.560 --> 00:14:30.100 tools. 190 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:32.160 Sean Murray: That's pretty incredible. I've never heard of 191 00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:35.070 anything like that. I've heard of a lot of different tech being 192 00:14:35.070 --> 00:14:37.710 implemented in, in this industry, but I've never heard 193 00:14:37.710 --> 00:14:38.280 that before. 194 00:14:38.281 --> 00:14:41.300 Eyal Levy: So I'll give you another one. The other one we're 195 00:14:41.301 --> 00:14:45.980 working on which will be later on this one we signed and the 196 00:14:45.981 --> 00:14:48.410 beauty of this is that it was developed by these Israeli 197 00:14:48.410 --> 00:14:51.320 intelligent forces and they know what they're doing, and it 198 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:54.680 works. That's the key. We're working with and other groups, 199 00:14:54.860 --> 00:15:02.090 which is another total different aspect of the group.The way the 200 00:15:02.090 --> 00:15:09.800 other one works is we send a, the the MCA sends the merchant, 201 00:15:10.010 --> 00:15:15.470 the application to be filled on his, on his phone. Okay? Either 202 00:15:15.470 --> 00:15:20.570 iPhone or whatever they use. And then when they do that, when 203 00:15:20.570 --> 00:15:24.800 they fill it in, they extract the metadata, the metadata is 204 00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:28.550 not the actual data, the phone numbers, and it's not the best 205 00:15:28.550 --> 00:15:33.620 information, it's how many times did he call a certain phone? How 206 00:15:33.620 --> 00:15:37.550 any times does he call, most of the calls are done in the 207 00:15:37.550 --> 00:15:42.410 morning or at night, how many times that the repeat phone 208 00:15:42.410 --> 00:15:46.790 calls and so on, so forth. And they extract from those data 209 00:15:46.820 --> 00:15:53.000 about 700, 700 different information technologies, and 210 00:15:53.930 --> 00:15:58.250 they do an analysis and based on that, they also tell you if it's 211 00:15:58.250 --> 00:16:03.680 accurate or not. So what we're trying to do is bring in tools 212 00:16:03.710 --> 00:16:11.840 for the MCA provider that will enhance his his underwriting 213 00:16:11.900 --> 00:16:15.860 performance. Because right now, if they have between five and 214 00:16:16.160 --> 00:16:20.810 5%, it all relies on on the people that are doing it. So you 215 00:16:20.810 --> 00:16:23.510 have one guy who's doing good under it, and the other one is 216 00:16:23.510 --> 00:16:28.670 slightly worse. And what as you grow as they grow, it becomes 217 00:16:29.300 --> 00:16:32.090 it's, it's a problem. When you grow you, you don't want to rely 218 00:16:32.090 --> 00:16:36.440 on people, you solely rely on people in the machine. Not that 219 00:16:36.470 --> 00:16:40.040 or that it's both. But this will give you an additional 220 00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:45.080 perspective of your potential clients. And then also when you 221 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:48.710 want to do later on when you do collection calls, it will tell 222 00:16:48.710 --> 00:16:53.270 you the guys is telling truth he's not honest, he's lying, and 223 00:16:53.270 --> 00:16:55.730 so on, so forth. So there are a lot of other aspects that you 224 00:16:55.730 --> 00:16:57.110 can avoid. It's amazing. 225 00:16:57.360 --> 00:16:59.640 Sean Murray: That's really incredible. The whole thing you 226 00:16:59.640 --> 00:17:04.350 mentioned with the meta the metadata and analyzing who 227 00:17:04.350 --> 00:17:07.320 called who and how often and what times I've heard that are 228 00:17:07.320 --> 00:17:10.500 being used in like the Philippines, where they don't 229 00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:14.460 have credit bureaus like they do in America that they're relying 230 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:17.790 on data like that. So I have heard of that type of technology 231 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:20.580 being used before. Never, never never the stuff where they're 232 00:17:20.580 --> 00:17:23.610 analyzing, you know, the voice and the pitch and the 233 00:17:23.610 --> 00:17:26.670 intonation, all that stuff. So that's pretty cool. But you 234 00:17:26.670 --> 00:17:30.660 mentioned a few things before about default rates, I think he 235 00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:34.530 gave a range. And I actually wanted to ask you about that, 236 00:17:34.530 --> 00:17:39.540 because we just got out of 2020. And we're on some kind of 237 00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:44.880 rebound, I think. And I'm interested to find out what you 238 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:48.030 saw, from your perspective in 2020. Because I've talked to a 239 00:17:48.030 --> 00:17:51.660 lot of funders, but I haven't really spoken to many funders of 240 00:17:51.661 --> 00:17:54.780 funders. So what did what did you see in 2020? 241 00:17:54.781 --> 00:18:00.480 Eyal Levy: What we saw is kind of the the initial response of 242 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:05.430 the market was freeze. Everybody froze. They didn't know what to 243 00:18:05.430 --> 00:18:10.620 do. The world is dead, you know, Corona is here. Okay. But little 244 00:18:10.620 --> 00:18:15.690 by little, they started analyzing, What's going on 245 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.960 Should we, shouldn't we? Okay so little by little, the 246 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:25.440 started funding smaller, smalle and different activities so tha 247 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:28.470 they stop funding restaurants they stopped funding, th 248 00:18:28.470 --> 00:18:31.500 riskier ones. They stoppe funding and they they starte 249 00:18:31.500 --> 00:18:36.000 funding the the others that th distributions and so on, s 250 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:41.970 forth. And the little by little they became easier. I think a 251 00:18:41.970 --> 00:18:46.020 the injections are coming in and then the they see that ther 252 00:18:46.020 --> 00:18:52.890 is a a light at the end of th tunnel. They figured that it' 253 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:58.470 it's okay to fund. And I alway thought that once the vaccin 254 00:18:58.470 --> 00:19:03.120 will start hitting the market the market will open up an 255 00:19:03.120 --> 00:19:06.480 we'll and we see it right no with our customers. Ou 256 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:10.170 customers are open, most of the are really booming. So it' 257 00:19:10.170 --> 00:19:15.870 amazing what they're doing December was very slow. And no 258 00:19:15.870 --> 00:19:19.830 January, February. It' unbelievable what we see. But w 259 00:19:19.830 --> 00:19:23.580 were expecting that. Now we'r talking about default rates i 260 00:19:23.580 --> 00:19:29.670 the history, default rates fo our customers. We're up to 25 261 00:19:30.210 --> 00:19:36.570 in some cases, but that's lif with the world collapsed. S 262 00:19:38.010 --> 00:19:43.380 Sean Murray: So you said January is unbelievable. But what's 263 00:19:43.410 --> 00:19:46.590 what's your feeling on the rest of 2021? Are you are you bullish 264 00:19:46.590 --> 00:19:48.720 or bearish on the merchant cash advance industry? 265 00:19:48.750 --> 00:19:51.810 Eyal Levy: I'm bullish, I think the market is going to be 266 00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:58.650 phenomenal. I think the fact that we have a president right 267 00:19:58.650 --> 00:20:03.000 now that people they don't have to listen to a tweet every 268 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.490 morning, you know, to see what's going on, we hear that those 269 00:20:05.490 --> 00:20:09.420 tweets drove everybody crazy. It seems as if people are more 270 00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:12.750 quiet now i'm not talking political. If this one is better 271 00:20:12.750 --> 00:20:15.540 than the other one, that's not the issue. The issues that 272 00:20:16.620 --> 00:20:20.550 people are getting calmer, and occasionally getting calmer, 273 00:20:20.730 --> 00:20:24.900 it's a stock market, you know, the stock market is feels what 274 00:20:24.900 --> 00:20:28.950 you feel, and then they feel that I knew that was going to 275 00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:31.800 happen, and it's going great. And I think that the rest of the 276 00:20:31.800 --> 00:20:34.560 year would be fantastic. I actually feel it would be the 277 00:20:34.560 --> 00:20:38.250 best year ever in the MCA market. And I see that there are 278 00:20:38.250 --> 00:20:41.670 a lot of newcomers in the market. 279 00:20:44.010 --> 00:20:48.090 Sean Murray: Now, Eyal, it's my understanding that you also do 280 00:20:48.090 --> 00:20:51.090 some type of mentorship program at Harvard. Is that right? 281 00:20:52.350 --> 00:20:55.710 Eyal Levy: Yeah, I started it about three years ago, I was 282 00:20:55.710 --> 00:20:58.950 invited to be a mentor in the Harvard Business School, I was 283 00:20:58.950 --> 00:21:05.160 very thrilled and excited. And it gave me a lot of interest, 284 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:10.050 because you see a lot of new ideas coming from very smart 285 00:21:10.050 --> 00:21:15.390 individuals. And the fact that the ability to assist in 286 00:21:15.420 --> 00:21:19.830 entrepreneurship program, that's the program I work with, is 287 00:21:19.830 --> 00:21:24.030 very, very exciting for me. And I spend a lot of time with them, 288 00:21:24.360 --> 00:21:28.110 assisting with the students assisting them in every aspect 289 00:21:28.110 --> 00:21:32.070 of building a business. So I built in my life, three 290 00:21:32.070 --> 00:21:36.210 businesses, which were very successful. And I have a lot of 291 00:21:36.210 --> 00:21:40.200 experience in the to start with the how to start the business, 292 00:21:40.200 --> 00:21:46.020 funding the business, funding later on stages. How do you get 293 00:21:46.020 --> 00:21:51.030 additional funds, second phase, third phase of fundings, and 294 00:21:51.030 --> 00:21:54.120 then marketing. How do you market? Who do you market? 295 00:21:54.510 --> 00:21:58.770 Publications, all the social media and so on, so for so I 296 00:21:58.770 --> 00:22:03.570 feel it's a it's exciting, and also, it helps me improve 297 00:22:03.570 --> 00:22:08.580 myself. In addition to helping them it creates a lot of 298 00:22:08.610 --> 00:22:14.490 interest for me because I see a lot of new ideas that could be 299 00:22:14.520 --> 00:22:18.600 developed in our business, 300 00:22:19.350 --> 00:22:22.530 Sean Murray: Everybody that was al Levy, CEO of banana exchange. 301 00:22:22.530 --> 00:22:23.790 Thank you so much for being here today. 302 00:22:23.820 --> 00:22:24.300 Pleasure