Knight Capital Technology to Play Continuing SBA Loan Role at Ready Capital Corporation

Ever since Ready Capital’s name arrived on the big stage for its leading role in the nation’s PPP lending, the company has continued to be very active in small business lending. They completed round 2 of the PPP program with $2.2B in loans to more than 72,000 small businesses. For comparison’s sake, that’s twice what PayPal contributed, who provided $1B to 43,000 businesses.

Ready Capital is the #1 non-bank in the nation in 7(a) SBA loan originations this year so far, according to John Moser, President of the company’s SBA lending division, and is #7 in the entire SBA lending industry nationwide.

Some of the technology behind their success can be attributed to Knight Capital, the company Ready acquired back in 2019. Knight has enabled the company to roll out offerings of SBA loans under $350,000, which it is using to grow its already impressive marketshare.

Speaking about Knight, Ready Capital CEO Thomas Capasse said in the Q2 earnings call, the “[Knight] investment will be levered into more technology affinity-based expansion of the SBA business.”

Overall, the company is optimistic. “Ready Capital is off to a strong start in 2021,” Capasse said during the call. “We have accomplished much in the first quarter of the year with our small balance commercial or SBC, CRE lending operations and Small Business Administration or SBA 7(a) lending businesses, posting record originations, including high volume in round two of the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP.”

Knight’s merchant cash advance business is combined with its small business lending division for quarterly reporting purposes so its individual stats are not easily ascertainable. The company still touts “same day business funding” on its website.