Archive for 2021
Plaid Report Hypes Fintech’s Progress, Potential
October 13, 2021
In their 2021 annual report, fintech giant Plaid claims that more people use fintech products than social media or streaming services in the U.S. Over the past two years, the number of Americans using fintech rose from 58% to 88% – a 52% increase.
“In terms of consumer technology penetration, fintech has entered the stratosphere of video streaming subscriptions (78%), and social media (72%) and is nearing par with the internet (93%). We’ve reached an era in which financial technology is no longer a corner of the financial system, but approaching its center,” reads the report.
The pandemic is credited as the catalyst for the large consumer engagement, but the report claims that the numbers are here to stay. According to Plaid, consumers have discovered that fintech products save them time and money, boosts fiscal confidence, and helps them make better financial decisions.
The report also found that baby boomers were the fastest-growing sect of fintech users, with boomer consumers doubling fintech engagement over from last year to 79%.
Plaid claims that the access to money managing apps has allowed debtors to save money and pay off debt. The report found that 53% of people who attempted to save money used a budgeting app in 2021, and 56% of people who made a goal to save or invest in the same year used some type of fintech app.
“The Internet has not really come for financial services before, and now it has,” John Pitts, Plaid’s global head of policy, told Fortune. Pitts said the “astonishing” year-on-year increase in consumer use “means that fintech is now one of the most adopted technologies by U.S. consumers.”
The report also evaluated race’s impact on fintech use. “While the vast majority of Americans have bank accounts (95%), minority groups tend to lag behind in access,” the report reads. “Only 87.8% of Hispanic people are banked, but 95% of those we surveyed report using technology to manage their finances. Similarly, while 86% of Black households are banked, 81% of those we surveyed report using technology to manage their finances.”
The report mentions that African Americans use fintech more than white individuals to combat financial problems. They also found that white account holders care less about fees than any other races.
“While the concept of managing your finances digitally has reached mass adoption, none of the individual types of tools has gotten more than 70% adoption,” Pitts said. “For individual types of products and services, there’s still a huge amount of product-level growth left in the market.”
NerdWallet Names its Competition, Reveals Its Web Traffic Figures
October 12, 2021
Personal finance company NerdWallet disclosed who its direct competitors were last week in an S-1 filing.
Those companies include: Bankrate, Credit Karma, LendingTree, and Zillow.
“We currently compete with a number of companies that market financial services online, as well as with more traditional sources of financial information, and with financial institutions offering their products directly, and we expect that competition will intensify,” NerdWallet said.
“… We also face direct or indirect competition from providers of consumer personal finance guidance and online search engines,” the company added.
NerdWallet generated 16 million unique users per month last year, defining that metric as a unique user with at least one session in a given month as determined by unique device identifiers. That was up from the 13 million per month in 2019.
The company had more than 8 million registered users as of December 2020, 2 million of which registered in 2020.
Fundera Sold For $29.2M + Up to $66M Earn-Out
October 12, 2021
When NerdWallet acquired Fundera last year, terms of the deal were not revealed.
NerdWallet recently disclosed that it paid $29.2M at closing to acquire Fundera with an additional potential earn-out of up to $66M over the following two years if certain metrics were met.
“As of December 31, 2020, the estimated fair value of the contingent consideration was $35.2 million,” NerdWallet reported.
Fundera had entered the market strong, launching in 2013, raising $3.4M in 2014, followed by another raise of $15.5M in 2015. The party slowed thereafter.
NerdWallet has big plans for Fundera, however. “We plan to invest significant resources to integrate, develop and expand new offerings and technologies in the markets in which Fundera operates,” the company wrote in its S-1 filing.
NerdWallet filed its S-1 on October 8th.
National Funding Announces the Upsize of Their Bank Credit Facility and the Issuance of Corporate Notes
October 12, 2021
SAN DIEGO, Calif. October 12, 2021 – National Funding, Inc., one of the largest U.S. specialty finance companies serving small- and medium-sized businesses, announced the recent renewal and upsize of a $60.0 million senior secured warehouse line of credit. The facility, which includes an accordion to expand to $75.0 million, was provided by a prominent U.S.-based commercial bank. The facility will continue to be used by the Company to fund new originations and support additional growth of the platform.
Concurrent with the transaction, National Funding also secured a $55.0 million investment-grade rated corporate note financing provided by a consortium of institutional investors. The transaction was assigned a BBB+ rating by a nationally recognized statistical ratings organization. Having closed this additional financing, National Funding is well positioned to support its partners and enhances the Company’s ability to take advantage of significant market opportunities.
To date, National Funding has provided more than $4.3 billion in working capital and equipment leasing for more than 75,000 small- to medium-sized businesses nationwide.
“As the economy recovers from the pandemic, this challenging environment is creating opportunities for National Funding to accelerate our growth plans and at the same time provide flexible capital solutions to our client base seeking to expand their businesses,” stated Dave Gilbert, CEO of the Company. “Our ability to close these transactions with multiple institutional partners has substantially expanded our financial capacity and flexibility and is a validation of the strength of the robust platform that National Funding has built.”
Joe Gaudio, President of National Funding, stated, “These new facilities represent the continued evolution of the Company’s funding sources, providing National Funding with a unique opportunity to reduce our cost of funding and access more diversified sources of capital. Both investments are a strong endorsement of the stability and success of our Company and of our mission to transform the way small businesses access the capital they need to grow.”
Brean Capital, LLC served as the Company’s Exclusive Financial Advisor and Placement Agent in connection with the note transaction.
About National Funding
Founded in 1999, National Funding is a leading U.S. specialty finance company serving small- and medium-sized businesses. The Company’s foundation serves American small business owners by providing funding solutions to meet their needs to reinvest in their day-to-day operations and help them grow. National Funding’s digital funding process has elevated its digital capabilities by delivering a fast and simple online application. For more information about National Funding, visit https://www.nationalfunding.com.
Contact:
Susan Almon-Pesch
Publicist for National Funding
sue@speschialpr.com
Facebook is Buying Invoices, But is it Factoring?
October 8, 2021
After Facebook announced Facebook Invoice Fastrack, a program that would allow the company to enter the invoice factoring business effective October 1st, few knew what to expect.
“My gut tells me here that Facebook is not all of the sudden getting into the lending business,” said James Cretella, Partner at Ottoburg LLC and guest speaker at the IFA conference last Spring. “Big tech is seeing the information symmetries, especially in small business lending. It’s very fragmented, and [tech] is trying to exploit that to bring down the cost, and to consolidate that industry,” he said.
Cretella expressed a positive outlook on Facebook’s entrance into the factoring sphere. “I think it’ll be a very good thing for small businesses when big tech gets involved.”
Others believe that big tech is doing pseudo-funding in an effort to break into the space and improve their public image. “There’s always a question when big tech or similar big anything’s get into factoring,” said Robert Zadek, Of Counsel for Buchalter and CEO of Lender’s Funding. “They might call that factoring, but it’s not. It’s a fake factoring product. Fake in the sense that it’s only part of what factoring is,” Zadek said.
Since then Facebook has revealed its program partners, Supplier Success and Crowdz.
The major component here is whether or not Facebook is doing the standard operating procedures of a factoring company, or just purchasing invoices owed. “They’re probably not filing a financing statement a UCC-1, because that takes a long time, and [tech] likes fast,” Zadek said. “Filing is slow and almost manual.”
Without going through the processes of a factoring company, Facebook may just be banking on the good faith of borrowers to pay and eating the costs of those who don’t. “[Facebook] is left with an earned 1% fee with no work, which would be profitable if they get back. If they don’t it’s like a write off,” said Zadek.
According to a Facebook announcement, the company has already practiced factoring with a handful of small businesses, claiming that the program has successfully helped these select businesses grow, even giving some businesses opportunities to just keep their doors open.
We wanted to make a commitment to building tools that made information and inclusive funding partners easy to find and understand,” said Ronnie Cameron, Product Manager, Social Impact at Facebook. “We’ve been able to engage with some amazing [organizations]. The pandemic brought to light the gaps in access to funding that have always existed for underrepresented business owners.”
Facebook is positioning itself in a way that appears that the company is providing an exclusive service to a community who had already been underserved prior to the pandemic, and now, according to them, needs help more than ever before. As the company has had a tough time maintaining a positive image to the public, this could also just be a slightly profitable way to fix their public perception.
Zadek compared tech’s entrance into funding to when MCAs began competing with Factoring Companies. “Instead of whining about MCAs, why don’t you give the client more money?,” he asked his predominately factoring audience when they would complain to him about MCAs. “The MCAs don’t have a death wish,” he told his audience. “They are giving money because they believe they are going to be paid back.”
Sticking to the notion that Facebook’s take on factoring is different from what his industry does, Zadek summed up his take on Facebook’s announcement.“They’re not doing factoring, they’re doing something that has little pieces of factoring in it.”
MJ Capital Funding Had More Than 5,000 Investors
October 8, 2021Investigations carried out by the Receiver for Pompano-based MJ Capital Funding, have revealed that the number of investors in the alleged ponzi is more than double than originally believed.
In August, the SEC successfully persuaded a judge to place MJ Capital in Receivership after providing a convincing argument that the company was engaged in an active securities fraud and that the assets should be preserved. At the time, the SEC estimated that there were as many as 2,150 investors and that the amount raised ranged somewhere between $70M and $129M.
Now with better access to the internal workings of the business, the Receiver says that there are actually more than 5,000 investors and that they expect this number to increase, according to recent court filings.
Also revealed is that more than 400 individuals were tasked with recruiting investors.
“While MJ Capital claimed to use investor funds to provide small business loans called Merchant Cash Advances, the Receiver’s investigation to date has revealed virtually no evidence of legitimate business activity involving the funding and collection of Merchant Cash Advances which proceeds could have funded the payments to investors,” the Receiver said in official papers.
The case is ongoing.
More than 3,200 people have come out in support of MJ Capital Funding’s CEO, believing that she is also a victim in what has befallen the company.
Miami is Now Making Money Off of Its Own Crypto Coin
October 7, 2021
Francis Suarez, the crypto-crazed mayor of Miami that has attempted to make his city the next center of innovation in the industry, has recently generated more than $7.1M in funding for Miami’s government via MiamiCoin. Arriving in the form of a crypto “donation” to the city, it was all made possible by CityCoins, a nonprofit that allows users to mine coins that the company claims can help the wallets of both coin holders and the cities with whom they look to invest in.
According to CityCoins’ website, each time a city launches a new coin, users can mine coins themselves. They are an open-source network that allows developers to create smart contracts on top of the same layer used by Bitcoin, a feature normally reserved for blockchains like Ethereum or Cardano.
“Each time a new CityCoin such as MiamiCoin launches, 20+ unique wallets are needed to activate the token’s mining process,” the site reads. “Once this happens, a 150 block (~24 hour) countdown begins, signaling the start of the CityCoins’ mining process at the end of the countdown period. From there, anyone is eligible to participate in the CityCoins mining process within a given Stacks block and be rewarded for their contributions.”
The system creates a bidding process, sending Stack tokens to the chosen city’s smart contract for a specific block. The more Stack tokens that are sent to the contract, the more likely a user is to win rewards for that block. This creates a system where anyone can compete for the coins, as the process of mining a CityCoins product is completely free of any type of hardware.
Thirty percent of miners’ forwarded Stacks is directed into a crypto wallet for the respective city, and the remaining 70% can be used to earn Stacks or Bitcoin. Winners of the coins through CityCoins’ mining process, are chosen by a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) that takes into account the number of Stacks sent to specific contracts.
Anyone would be forgiven if the process and potential utility sounds convoluted. It becomes even more so after examining what exactly a “Stack token” is.
Stacks, a type of blockchain token originated into existence in 2019, were previously registered as securities with the SEC, a rarity in the crypto space. The company that issued them, however, has since changed course and has chosen to no longer register them. This was based upon the company’s own legal opinion, not the SEC’s.
Bottom line: However this CityCoins systems works and whatever the reasons why anyone would participate in it, it has somehow managed to yield more than $7 million for the city of Miami.
While everyone today likes to focus on the negative and want to create conflict and division…We made 1 million dollars on Miami Coin…TODAY…think about that! https://t.co/Ycbwre6Wss
— Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) October 1, 2021
When speaking about the city’s involvement in becoming a fintech hub with The Floridian, Suarez credited timing to why his city is becoming the go-to spot for fintech businesses to flock. “We had an opportunity,” Suarez said. “You had cities across America, urban cities, pushing out innovators through taxation policies, sometimes elected officials saying “F” Elon Musk, or Amazon picks New York and they push them out.”
Suarez, a member of the Florida BlockChain Task Force, also credited his December 2020 viral tweet as a reason for tech’s attraction to Miami. Suarez answered a tweet with “how can I help?” after a user took to Twitter asking people if they believed Silicon Valley should move to Miami. “It was so counter-narrative to the way elected officials were dealing with technology and technologists,” he said, in reference to the Tweet.
According to Suarez, the city’s focus on crypto and fintech has made Miami a tech-trendsetter for other cities. Thanks to tech’s arrival, Miami is the first city to pursue paying workers in Bitcoin, the first to allow citizens to pay taxes in Bitcoin, and hitting huge numbers in the city’s job market. According to Suarez, the city added 8,000 jobs with an average annual salary of $120,000 in the past nine months.
“For the first time in [Miami’s] history, we are now creating high paying jobs,” Suarez said.
Sonia Alvelo, CEO of Latin Financial Will Appear on deBanked TV
October 6, 2021
Sonia Alvelo, CEO of Latin Financial, will join Sean Murray live on deBanked TV on Thursday at approximately 12:15pm EST. Latin Financial is based in Newington, CT and Alvelo has contributed valuable insight to deBanked over the years, particularly on the Puerto Rican small business finance market.
Anyone can tune in to debanked.com/tv/ for free without any registration to watch.
Who is Latin Financial?
A family owned and operated brokerage firm with a variety of backgrounds and expertise. We’re here to help all of our clients with their business’ unique financial needs. No loan is too big or too small for us; our goal is to simply help create a positive future for all of our clients. Here at Latin Financial, we understand that working capital can be difficult to obtain. With banks approving fewer and fewer loans, borrowing for your business’ future can be frightening and uncertain, especially in today’s economy. With Latin Financial you’re in good hands.
Latin Financial has over 10 years of business financial experience between its advisors.
We are at the forefront of this quickly changing economy and we work closely with our clients and investors because we are fully committed to meeting and exceeding expectations. We also believe in keeping our services affordable, working around your budget while never charging fees.
We are proud that so many of our clients have repeatedly turned to us for guidance and assistance with their business capital needs. We work hard to earn their loyalty every day.
