By: Sean Murray

Sean Murray is the founder of deBanked (2010), deBanked Connect & Broker Fair (2018), and DailyFunder (2012). Murray entered the nonbank finance industry in 2006 and has a Bachelors of Science in Accounting & Finance from University of Delaware. He is widely known for his extensive reporting on the merchant cash advance industry and fintech. ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() |
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
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.
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
03/17/2022 | Sean Murray searches for gold |
02/01/2022 | Sean Murray to Speak at NFT.NYC |
10/11/2021 | Sean Murray on The Smarter Money Show |
06/02/2021 | Video: Sean Murray with Oz Konar |
03/31/2021 | Video: Jennie Villano and Sean Murray |
What is a Ponzi Scheme? | What is an RTR? |
Live Introduction From Broker Fair 2021 | Episode 69 |
deBanked President and Chief Editor Sean Murray will be moderating a best practices panel at the New York Institute of Credit Event on October 16th. The event is also supported by the IFA Northeast, the Alternative Finance Bar Association, and deBanked.
The subject of the panel is to discuss best practices when dealing with different financial firms, namely ABL, factoring, and merchant cash advance. The panelists are:
The other day, Inc. writer and loan broker Ami Kassar took some time out of his day from taking photos of his shadow in the park to engage me in a debate about the use of APRs in future receivable purchase transactions. He was apparently very bothered by my analysis of Square’s merchant cash advance program which has transacted more than $300 million to date.
To clarify my position here, I am indeed in favor of transparency, so long as it’s intelligent transparency. Coming up with phony percentages based on estimates and applying them to transactions where they don’t make sense is not transparency. Similarly, advocating that merchant cash advance companies and lenders alike move away from a dollar-for-dollar pricing model to one that requires the seller or borrower to do math or hire an accountant is also not transparency.
Even a Federal Reserve study that attempted to prove merchant cash advances were confusing inadvertently proved that APRs in general were confusing. If someone doesn’t know how to calculate an APR, then it’s unreasonable to assume that they could work backwards from an APR to determine the dollar-for-dollar cost of capital. In effect, APR is a surefire way to mask the trust cost despite arguments to the contrary.
My unplanned debate with Ami Kassar on twitter is below:
Sorry Ami. The only thing unclear is your argument.
Broker Fair returns to NYC on May 8th at the New York Hilton Midtown. Once again brokers from the small business lending, commercial financing, revenue-based financing, leasing, equipment financing, factoring, and mca industries, will come together in the heart of New York.
“It’s exciting to return back to our pre-pandemic schedule and host Broker Fair in the Spring,” said event founder Sean Murray. “This is the biggest annual small business finance conference in Manhattan and we’re excited to be doing it again now for the sixth time since 2018. If you haven’t seen what this show is all about, 2023 is the best year to come and find out!”
Register here. For inquiries or questions, email events@debanked.com.
See last year’s sizzle reel:
The DailyFunder.com domain was registered ten years and 1 month ago. Formed two years after the debut of deBanked, DailyFunder went on to become the most active small business finance community in North America. The forum has generated more than 160,000 posts and has more than 12,000 members. It has regularly surpassed two million page views per year.
“There is no doubt that the DF has impacted the trajectory of the industry over the last decade,” said Sean Murray, who founded it. “The site receives thousands of visitors per day. In the early years it ushered in an era of broker commission transparency.”
Murray recalled a time when sales agents were not always aware that there were even commissions being paid at all.
“There were reps who thought that they had to charge merchants a separate fee in order to earn anything at all,” Murray said. “And their bosses were taking 50% of that. When I would bring up commissions, they’d be like ‘wait, the funders are paying my boss for these deals too?’ and I’d be like ‘how do you not know this?’ Widespread communication via the forum eliminated a lot of the secrets.”
One of the most popular categories on the forum in more recent times has been the Deal Bin, where brokers try to find placement for deals. It’s recorded more than 41,000 posts.
“Ten years is a lifetime as far as I’m concerned,” Murray said. “Love it or hate it, everybody knows the DF. If you’re a lender or funder, your brokers are lurking on there whether they admit it or not.”
Sean Murray is scheduled to speak at the NFT NYC Conference this afternoon about the use of NFTs in the small business lending market. NFT NYC is a 4-day event dedicated to the subject of non-fungible tokens. Blockchains present a possible solution to some inefficiencies that exist in the small business finance industry. Some or all of Murray’s presentation will be shared on deBanked.
Here’s a short preview of what’s going at NFT NYC:
The team behind deBanked is hosting a 3-hour open bar in New York City this Wednesday night on May 11th from 6-9pm. It’s called deCashed. deBanked readers interested in Web3, NFTs, and crypto are welcome to attend the event being held at The Refinery Rooftop.
Sponsored by Artchive and designated as the first in-real-life meetup for enthusiasts of the Ethereum Name Service’s recently formed “10KClub,” deCashed intends to bring crypto-capable folks together for a night of fun, networking, and cocktails.
“I think there is a big misconception among folks who associate crypto with things like the value of bitcoin,” said Sean Murray. “In my opinion, cryptocurrencies are not investments. They’re payment tools and a means of identity. If you’ve soured on crypto because you were told a coin was going to go up and then it went down instead, that is unfortunate because the actual use-cases for crypto are just starting to be used and are on the verge of mass adoption. You don’t need to invest in any coins, just be knowledgeable of the infrastructure.”
Twitter, for example, has already implemented a limited Web3 mechanism in which ethereum-based NFTs can be used as profile pictures for users that connect their wallets. Instagram too is slated to roll out integrations with ethereum, solana, flow, and polygon THIS WEEK as social media the world over begins its slow evolution forward. Coinbase too rolled out its own social network last week. Similarly, a handful of non-bank lenders have already pivoted to smart-contract-based loans in which lenders are effectively 100% insulated from loss.
Seven years ago there was a big rush for small business lenders to incorporate social media activity into the underwriting process with the premise that much could be learned by what businesses say, share, and present themselves as on social media. Today, social media users are slowly gravitating toward a blockchain-based experience connected to their digital wallets in which their bank statements and their online photos are effectively accounted for in the same system. Do you know how to examine that?
See you at the deCashed three-hour open bar this Wednesday night in NYC at The Refinery Rooftop from 6-9pm if Web3 and crypto appeals to you. Please register in advance. If you need help, e-mail events@decashed.com or call 917-722-0808.
Broker Fair is coming back to New York City on October 24th at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Anticipated to be the biggest Broker Fair ever, brokers from the small business lending, commercial financing, revenue-based financing, leasing, factoring, and MCA industries, will come together in the heart of New York.
“It’s amazing to have participated in the industry’s growth over the last four years,” said Broker Fair founder Sean Murray. “Our first event launched in Brooklyn in 2018 and now the demand has brought us into a massive newly-renovated venue in the middle of Times Square.”
Brokers, lenders, funders, factors, equipment financiers, fintechs, and the whole small business finance ecosystem can expect a full day of education, inspiration, and high quality networking opportunities.
Register here. For inquiries or questions, email events@debanked.com.
See last year’s sizzle reel:
âWe are the salesforce for embedded finance.â
Timothy Li, CEO of Alchemy, has launched a financing software for both commercial and small business lenders that can automatically approve applicants through an integrated decision engine. The service offers what he calls a âsoup to nutsâ digital lending platform â offering lines of credit, installment loans, and even loan servicing.
For the past six years, Li has been building a suite of products for those who want to sell financing. He compared his product to what many companies are now offering in the form of Buy Now Pay Later. As his service began to grow, Li realized there was an âextensionâ of potential with his service.
â[The] extension of this is that some of the small businesses also happened to be small business lenders,” he said.
According to him, he created the service not as an idea of innovation, but to meet a growing demand from his users. “I heard from all of the small business lenders in the New York area,â said Li. âThey said âTim, could you augment or come up with a piece of software fully automated for us to useââ?
Although it took some time, Li said this recent announcement is what the lenders that came to him years ago were looking for. âI said well, weâre almost there, give me a year or two to kind of really properly do it right. So thatâs what weâve done.â
In what he refers to as âprivate labeledâ software, Alchemyâs Lending SaaS (or Lending-as-a-Service) allows merchants and lenders alike to operate a fully branded and operational lending platform with a full suite of financial products. Customers range from tattoo removal companies to lenders, to companies that have now grown to become publicly traded.
The ability to literally send Alchemy a JPEG of some branding and marketing and becoming on online lender is as easy as just that. âAnybody can put their label on and have [their lending platform] up and going in a matter of weeks,” said Li.
When speaking about the role ISOâs play alongside his technology, Li didnât dismiss the value brokers play in the small business lending industry. âThe good olâ ISO model is great,â he said. âItâs great that there is a product like this that can help [merchants] grow and drive their company. But as the new generation comes in, they donât have time. They might be on their phone for five minutes after they close their store or small business, and these kind of products are out there sitting there for them to apply for on their own time.â
Li hinted that his product is best utilized by merchants who are digitally-native and are looking to have access to data quickly, while being given the time to make a decision regarding the type of financial product best suited to their business.
â[Alchemy] lets them pick what they want to pick based on their own cash flow,â he said. âItâs no longer that there will be a sales process where things arenât as transparent. The ‘I am not going to tell you who my lender is until Iâm paid,’ [thing], you know how the ISO world works. This stuff takes all of that away, and puts it right in the hands of the consumer that needs it.â
When asked if brokers could find any use of this product, Li said that if used right, the value proposition for brokers that use this software is huge.
âBrokers can use our system just like any other lender. If they want to have another way to be able to market to these small businesses, and have them use their products more. Itâs essentially HubSpot for financing.â
Inform More, Earn More... dale laszig has written a terrific article (http://www.greensheet.com/emagazine.php?article_id=6033) on the green sheet (http://www.greensheet.com/) a... |
Inform More, Earn More... sean murray, president and chief editor at*debanked, makes great points about education for sales agents being paramount to their success.*if knowledgeable about the diversity of financial products, and their distinctions from one another, agents can*help customers make informed decisions, which allows them to close more deals., , *, , customers trust in the person, brand or company they are working with is... |
How in the WORLD!!!??... sean murray over at debanked to do a nice piece for his magazine debanked., , this is just getting crazy!!! still waiting for approval/denial and merchant has been called 4 times already.... wwooowwwwww!!!!... |
Quicksilver... sean murray would have stepped in to stop this but i guess doesnt want to hurt his bottom line... |