Stop the Debt Settlement People, Funders Come Up With Merchant-Friendly Alternative

Are debt settlement “advisors” interfering with your contracts and putting your merchants in a bad spot? The industry is now taking the reins on a solution. It’s called GreenLedger, a platform for funders to work together on resolving a merchant’s situation with no debt settlement middlemen encouraging an intentional default, taking fees, and making false promises.

Founded by Elevate Funding CEO Heather Francis, who aims to eventually make it a non-profit, merchants would go to this industry-collaborative platform, indicate who they have open contracts with, and the platform would notify the funders directly.

“From there, the primary points of contact at each funder can get together to come up with a more specific and comprehensive payment plan that works with the merchant’s needs,” said Francis. “GreenLedger’s mission is to work directly with our small business clients to stabilize their revenue-based financing arrangements and avoid breaching their agreements, eliminating the need for potentially predatory middlemen.”

The platform has already been generating interest.

“As an attorney deeply committed to the financial empowerment of small and medium-sized businesses, I am thrilled to endorse Elevate Funding’s creation of GreenLedger,” said industry attorney Patrick Siegfried. “This initiative represents a pivotal step in our ongoing battle against the increasing prevalence of unscrupulous entities in the commercial finance debt settlement industry. Far too often, these bad actors employ deceptive sales tactics and bind clients with unfair contracts, leading not to the promised debt relief but to further financial strain for small businesses. GreenLedger, with its dedication to transparency and integrity, stands as a true avenue for business owners seeking legitimate and effective financial solutions. Its mission to root out malpractices and safeguard the interests of small businesses is not just commendable but essential in today’s challenging economic landscape.”

To learn how you can participate and cut the debt settlement people out of the picture, attend this webinar on April 16th.

Shopify Capital Renewal Rate Greater than 70%

Shopify Capital’s funding business is continuing to gain momentum, according to the company’s latest quarterly earnings. Shopify stopped specifying precisely how much it is originating (perhaps because deBanked kept turning those numbers into posts every quarter for years) but still lists the receivables from its loans and merchant cash advances as a line item on its balance sheet. There the balance increased from $580M to $816 year-over-year.

“We know the capital product has been effective because we’re seeing a repeat renewal rate of over 70%, a testament to our ability to help merchants access the funding they need for growth, particularly ahead of key sale times, including the crucial Q4 holiday shopping season,” said Shopify President Harley Finkelstein during the call.

Fintech Hasn’t Stopped. There’s Still Room for Constant Improvement in Lending

“I think fintech is a broad term,” said Frank McKenna, Chief Fraud Strategist at Point Predictive. “It can apply primarily to technology that enables faster banking, and more digital banking that hasn’t been satisfied with kind of the traditional brick and mortar banks or finance companies. Fintech can be banks, it can be platforms that provide the backbone for that kind of streamline lending. Or it can even be considered companies like ours, technology that helps financial companies make better decisions.”

Fintech, which can take on any one of the forms McKenna described, has been causing transformations for over a decade and yet there are still processes in the lending world still ripe for improvement.

“[Fintech is] growing every day, it will be more because of timing,” said Richard Gusmano, CEO of BCCUSA. “I think we’re going to see more and more people doing it, especially with the SBA opening up lending to non-banks. You’re going to see more of it in many different fashions and derivatives and how they see it is going to continue to emerge.”

Gusmano’s company helps businesses secure bank lines and bank loans, a system that now includes its very own AI-powered solution. He’s already seeing how AI and machine learning technologies stand to disrupt processes in the small business finance ecosystem.

“There’s so many different ways to use it and it is not rocket science,” Gusmano said. “In the MCA space, it’s amount of deposits, it’s average daily balance, it’s business type, and other positions. AI can immediately pick up those things if programmed to do so. I would think that the MCA underwriters over time should be concerned because AI could likely do that and pick that up.”

But it’s not just about replacing manual processes, but also doing it in an efficient manner.

“Since most fintech is dealing in a non-face to face environment, you’re going to have a whole host of risk in fintech, more than you might have in a traditional bank,” said McKenna of Point Predictive, whose company collaborates with lenders to detect potential risks. “I can just name off five or six: you have higher rates of identity theft, use of fake IDs called synthetic identities, you have more falsified documentation, fake employers, people shot-gunning where they’ll go to multiple fintechs the same day and get as many loans as they can, as quick as they can. They call it shot gunning.”

McKenna added that if someone has no knowledge of how to navigate these types of strategies or does not have the right technology to handle it, they may fall victim to them.

The keyword there might be someone, as in a person

“The risks associated is that you still are going to need someone that can make human decisions, even with financial technology,” said Gusmano. “And if you don’t, you’re going to be keeping yourself away from businesses that you want to do business with. It can never be 100% tech.”