PSC and Hudson Cook, LLP Align to Promote Best Practices in Merchant Cash Advance Industry

Earlier today, New York-based PSC announced an alliance with nationally renowned law firm Hudson Cook, LLP to educate members of the merchant cash advance industry. PSC provides full backend systems and support staff for more than a dozen merchant cash advance companies.

The move is significant because it focuses on the adoption of best practices. The only other similar initiative has come from from the Small Business Finance Association (SBFA), but no organization has ever actually made guidelines public, at least not since the Electronic Transactions Association published a white paper in March 2008.

Both Hudson Cook and the SBFA are said to be separately working on their own public best practice frameworks in collaboration with industry participants.

Three attorneys for Hudson Cook recently took on the industry’s most polarizing topic, stacking, when they authored, Stacking: Is it Tortious Interference?. “The analysis of what is ‘improper’ interference versus vigorous, but acceptable, competition will be based on the specific facts of each case,” they wrote.

The law firm may draw from another well established best practice playbook, like the one that exists for the Online Lenders Alliance in the consumer lending space.

PSC recently hired Amanda Kingsley, the woman behind the headline, “Year of the Broker” in our last issue. Kingsley spoke often of best practices in her interview with deBanked Magazine.

A month ago at the LendIt conference, Karen Mills, the former head of the Small Business Administration, said she asked several regulatory bodies who would stand up to oversee small business lending. “No one stood up,” she said.

For now, that seems to mean that the industry is on its own. “PSC also intends to maintain its commitment to its members by providing standards to help them better adhere to all new legal requirements and regulatory practices,” the release said.

It’s a step in the right direction.

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.