Archive for 2019
Broker Fair 2019 Photos
May 10, 2019If you share any of these on social media, please remember to include #brokerfair
Enjoy!
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Amazon Now Among The Top Online Small Business Lenders in The United States
May 8, 2019
Amazon has joined PayPal, OnDeck, Kabbage, and Square as being among the largest online small business lenders. On Tuesday, Amazon revealed that it had made more than $1 billion in small business loans to US-based merchants in 2018. Amazon says the capital is used to build inventory and support their Amazon stores.
By selling on Amazon, “SMBs do not need to invest in a physical store or the costs of customer discovery, acquisition, and driving customer traffic to their branded websites,” the company says. Small and medium-sized businesses selling in Amazon’s stores now account for 58 percent of Amazon’s sales. More than 200,000 SMBs exceeded $100,000 in sales on Amazon in 2018 and more than 25,000 surpassed $1 million.
You can view the full report they published here.
| Company Name | 2018 Originations | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | |
| PayPal | $4,000,000,000* | $750,000,000* | ||||
| OnDeck | $2,484,000,000 | $2,114,663,000 | $2,400,000,000 | $1,900,000,000 | $1,200,000,000 | |
| Kabbage | $2,000,000,000 | $1,500,000,000 | $1,220,000,000 | $900,000,000 | $350,000,000 | |
| Square Capital | $1,600,000,000 | $1,177,000,000 | $798,000,000 | $400,000,000 | $100,000,000 | |
| Amazon | $1,000,000,000 | |||||
| Funding Circle (USA only) | $792,000,000 | $514,000,000 | $281,000,000 | |||
| BlueVine | $500,000,000* | $200,000,000* | ||||
| National Funding | $494,000,000 | $427,000,000 | $350,000,000 | $293,000,000 | ||
| Kapitus | $393,000,000 | $375,000,000 | $375,000,000 | $280,000,000 | ||
| BFS Capital | $300,000,000 | $300,000,000 | $300,000,000 | |||
| RapidFinance | $260,000,000 | $280,000,000 | $195,000,000 | |||
| Credibly | $290,000,000 | $180,000,000 | $150,000,000 | $95,000,000 | $55,000,000 | |
| Shopify | $277,100,000 | $140,000,000 | ||||
| Forward Financing | $210,000,000 | $125,000,000 | ||||
| IOU Financial | $125,000,000 | $91,300,000 | $107,600,000 | $146,400,000 | $100,000,000 | |
| Yalber | $65,000,000 |
FTC Forum on Small Business Financing & Merchant Cash Advances
May 7, 2019At the FTC Forum on Small Business Financing & Merchant Cash Advances this morning, FTC regulators asked questions of a panel of industry representatives about controversial topics, including the use of COJs. Below are some closely paraphrased responses.
On Confessions of Judgment (COJs)
Scott Crocket, Founder & CEO, Everest Business Funding
The role of COJs is a conversation worth having. What’s the right balance?
We choose only to use them for deals of $100,000 or more. And COJs apply for only 3% of our business. So if there was a ban on COJs, it wouldn’t really affect us. It might just limit the amount we would fund.
The Bloomberg stories are not representative of what we do. We don’t file a COJ when a business is slowing down, but only when we suspect fraud.
Jared Weitz, CEO, United Capital Source
90% to 95% of our deals do not include COJs. And for those where we do use COJs, we give merchants a document that has a description of what it is so that they’re comfortable with it. We tell them that they have to be comfortable with it before they take it.
Jesse Carlson, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Kapitus
After we saw the extent of the use of confessions of judgement by certain individuals/companies, as a trade association, we at the Small Business Finance Association (SBFA) decided to include in our code of conduct a ban on the use of confessions of judgement if you’re a member of the SBFA.
Part of the reason why we do include COJs is because we’re very careful with our underwriting.
On True-ups
Jesse Carlson
We have 5 to 10 employees who speak with merchants when they are having unforeseen financial challenges and we’ll adjust their ACH repayment. Some companies treat the percentage of the company’s sales as an absolute. We’ll offer them modifications.
Scott Crocket
We remind merchants that the true-up is available.
Ami Kassar, Founder & CEO, Multifunding LLC
Many funders are not as forgiving as these funders say they are.
Kate Fisher, Partner, Hudson Cook
Some MCA funders reached out to merchants affected by the hurricane in Texas and the forest fires in California to adjust their payments.
Jared Weitz
Other funders stopped requesting payments altogether from merchants who were affected by these natural disasters.
Brokers / Aggressive Marketing
Jared Weitz
A broker of an MCA deal has to give the commission back if the merchant fails within 90 days.
Jesse Carlson
We work with about 100 brokers/ISOs at a given time and we do background checks on them.
Scott Crocket
We do background checks on brokers and we monitor their behavior. We don’t hesitate to cut off a relationship with an ISO. We do spot checks, but we don’t monitor every ISO every day.
The Federal Trade Commission hosted a forum on small business financing including loans and merchant cash advances to examine trends and consumer protection issues in this marketplace.
The forum began at 8:30am and concluded at 1pm. Among some familiar names that spoke are:
- Jared Weitz, CEO, United Capital Source
- Scott Crockett, Founder & CEO, Everest Business Funding
- Christian Spradley, Head of Policy & Senior General Associate Counsel, OnDeck
- Kate Fisher, Partner, Hudson Cook
- Ami Kassar, Founder & CEO, Multifunding LLC
- Jesse Carlson, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Kapitus
- Sam Taussig, Head of Global Policy, Kabbage
- Lewis Goodwin, Banking Lead, Square Capital
Broker Fair 2019 Speaker Lineup
May 5, 2019Broker Fair 2019 check-in begins at 7:30 am on Monday morning. With nearly 700 people registered to attend, it’s going to be a packed event! If you’ve got a ticket, here’s who you can expect to hear from:
A deBanked Event is Coming to Canada
May 4, 2019Toronto, Ontario – deBanked is coming to Canada. A deBanked CONNECT networking event will be taking place at the Omni King Edward in Toronto on July 25th. The event will cater to the Canadian online small business lending and merchant cash advance industry. Tickets are already available for sale at https://www.debankedcanada.com. Early bird pricing is available until May 30th.
Conference President Sean Murray said of the event, “We have had a lot of success with events for this market in the United States and I believe we can provide value in Canada where the industry has many similarities. Tickets and sponsorships are priced in Canadian dollars.”
Registration on July 25th will begin at 1:30pm and the event continues all day until 8pm. The conference has a special discount room rate at the Omni King Edward that is available until June 24th. Book using group name: deBanked CONNECT Toronto.
About deBanked CONNECT Toronto
deBanked CONNECT events are produced by Foinse, LLC, a Delaware, USA organization. Foinse is registered under Canadian BN: 700629710. Prior events have been hosted in New York City, Miami, and San Diego. To learn more, email events@debanked.com or call 917-722-0808. Register for the event online at https://www.debankedcanada.com.
OnDeck Slips To #3 in Tight Pack of Top Small Business Lenders
May 3, 2019
With most 2019 Q1 earnings in for public companies, the industry’s biggest lenders are off to the races. Square reported on Wednesday that Square Capital, its business lending arm, originated $508 million in loans in the first quarter of the year. Meanwhile, OnDeck originated $636 million this quarter, according to its earnings report released yesterday. Kabbage, which is not a public company, has been trailing very closely behind OnDeck for the last few years but someone familiar with the company said that Kabbage’s originations in the first quarter of this year surpassed OnDeck’s.
Then there is PayPal, which has not released official origination numbers for 2019 Q1. But earlier statements from PayPal that they had surpassed a billion dollars in quarterly small business funding in 2018 (already more than OnDeck), would put it in the #1 slot for originations. Additionally, a comment made by PayPal CEO Dan Schulman during the company’s earnings call last week implied that its Q1 2019 earnings are again over a billion dollars.
PayPal’s estimated originations number represents its US and international originations, including their business financing products available in the UK, Australia, Germany and Mexico. Likewise, OnDeck’s number represents originations from the US along with its smaller markets in Australia and Canada.
Square Capital operates exclusively in the US, so its originations number is US-only. And Kabbage’s undisclosed estimated originations number represents purely US originations.
| Company Name | 2019 Q1 Funding Volume |
| PayPal | $1,000,000,000+ |
| Kabbage | $650,000,000* |
| OnDeck | $636,000,000 |
| Square | $508,000,000 |
OnDeck Originations Slide in First Quarter
May 2, 2019
OnDeck’s originations dipped in the first quarter of this year to $636 million, down from $658 million in the previous quarter.
“We made some adjustments to credit policy mid-quarter to pull back in certain areas and our funding advisor channel volume decreased sequentially as a result,” said OnDeck CEO Noah Breslow.
In other words, OnDeck has tightened its credit box.
“If you tighten [your credit box] and your competitors stay exactly the same, on the margin, your funnel is going to deteriorate a little bit because you’re not making as aggressive offers as you were before,” Breslow said in response to a question on this morning’s earnings call.
But he also said that OnDeck has a lot of historical data on its portfolio that tells them that this tightening for now is a wise decision.
“And we’re not making a seismic shift in who we’re targeting or what we’re trying to do,” Breslow said.
When asked by an analyst on the conference call if competition in the space is now more intense, he agreed that it is.
“But it’s broad based, not localized to any one competitor,” Breslow said. “There are larger players in the market that are getting a little more mature. Some of them are improving their access to capital as well.”
Kabbage likely sees itself as a primary competitor and not just part of “broad based” competition. After all, it originated $2 billion last year, compared to OnDeck’s $2.48 billion.
“The small players actually have pretty good access to capital too,” Breslow said on the call. “So any single one of them is not that big, but if you put them all together, they’re equivalently sized to another OnDeck. So that’s something we watch as well.”
While total originations dropped for OnDeck, Breslow said that the company’s line of credit volume was at an all time high, accounting for $150 million. Also, 43% of volume for the first quarter of 2019 came from OnDeck’s direct channel. Yet the company continues to build out its partnerships.
“Given the attractive customer acquisition costs in the strategic partner channel…adding new partnerships remains a focus,” Breslow said.
Breslow said OnDeck expects to return to quarterly growth in the second half of this year.
Square Originated $508M in Business Loans in Q1
May 1, 2019Square Capital, Square’s business lending arm, originated 70,000 small business loans for a total of $508 million last quarter, according to their recent earnings report.
As a payments company first, Square processed $22.6 billion in gross payment volume in Q1 and generated a net loss of $38 million on $959 million in revenue.
