Initiative to Push Maryland Commercial Financing Disclosure Bill Points to New York and California

Maryland State Senate bill SB0825 was put up for contentious debate last week. The bill is Maryland’s latest attempt to impose restrictions on a subset of commercial finance transactions.

State Senator Ben Kramer spoke at length before the Finance Committee, arguing that opposition to the 2022 version of the bill would be fruitless because it was modeled after passed legislation in New York and California. Apparently operating under the impression that such states had settled the issue of calculating an APR on a purchase transaction, Kramer appeared unaware (perhaps intentionally) that both states have been unable to enact their legislations because of critical flaws in their mathematical assumptions. In the case of California, for example, implementation of its disclosure law has been delayed for almost 4 years.

The corresponding Maryland House Bill of this legislation (HB1211) has since been withdrawn.

Senator Kramer has led the push for regulation for three years straight, beginning in 2020 when a related bill he introduced was called “Merchant Cash Advance Prohibition.”

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.