SEAN MURRAY
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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



Recently Authored by Sean Murray

Are You The Top Broker?!
By: Sean Murray

broker battle
ENTER YOURSELF IN BROKER BATTLE HERE
Broker Battle returns on February 20, 2025 at deBanked CONNECT MIAMI. The competition, now the 2nd ever after last year's very successful launch, is back with an improved format that allows for almost any qualified broker the opportunity to be tested LIVE in person. Broker Battle TWO will also have 3 separate broker categories versus last year's catch-all. Those categories are Revenue Based Finance, SBA Lending, and Equipment Financing. debanked miamiAll competing brokers will be vetted, tested, and scored through very short judging rounds on the showcase floor. The two top scores from each category will actually compete on stage for the championship. That means that as opposed to last year's 6 total contestants and 7 separate battles on stage, this year's competition could feasibly manage up to 100 contestants for which there will only be 3 total battles on stage (each being a championship). The format allows for more brokers to prove themselves in person while reducing total stage time for the final grand performance. Each broker will win a cash prize and the distinction of being Top Broker (in their category). To be eligible for entry, you must be an active broker with good ethics and a positive reputation. You must also be registered to attend deBanked CONNECT MIAMI where it will take place and enter yourself in the battle itself here.
ENTER YOURSELF IN BROKER BATTLE HERE
Broker Battle intends to foster best practices.
Watch Last Year's Inaugural Competition
Anthony Truglia, Winner of Broker Battle 1
anthony truglia, winner of broker battle 1
Neuromancer and the Origin of Bitcoin
By: Sean Murray

Is there a deeper secret message hidden in the origin story of Bitcoin? I personally discovered an uncanny relationship between the plot of Neuromancer, a famous 1984 novel authored by William Gibson, and Bitcoin that's actually gaining traction on social media.
Some readers might remember that on February 24, 2024, I posited that Satoshi Nakamoto was actually Jack Dorsey. It wasn't until October that I discovered the relationship with Neuromancer. When I merely tweeted out the word Neuromancer without any context whatsoever, Jack Dorsey immediately shared a link to the novel (on Nostr) also without any context. Pretty coincidental timing for a 40-year-old novel.
Dorsey has not confirmed anything but is aware of my postings. So I guess for now this has to be chalked up to being a really good and probably true theory, but not confirmed. While it is theorized that Satoshi Nakamoto would prefer to remain anonymous, Dorsey is unique in that he wears a custom-made t-shirt everywhere that says Satoshi on it. He also wrote a letter to Block's shareholders earlier this year that was filed with the SEC in which he expressed that Block was following Satoshi Nakamoto's vision when it comes to crypto matters. Given these very public statements, it seems fair game to publicly draw the connection between himself and Satoshi. The Satoshi name on the shirt stands out for another reason as well because Jack has done this before. More than fifteen years ago, he made a custom shirt with a phone number and wore it all around San Francisco. The number happened to be his personal number and he wanted to see who would call him. The excerpt below is from the book Hatching Twitter.
jACK DORSEY
Readers may also recall that while Jack's company Block is the largest online business lender in the US, it also generates more than $10 billion in bitcoin revenue annually.



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Sean Murray to Moderate Best Practices Panel at New York Institute of Credit Event

October 15, 2018
Article by:

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:

  • Bill Gallagher, President, CFG Merchant Solutions
  • Bill Elliott, President, First Business Growth Funding
  • Raffi Azadian, CEO, Change Capital
  • Dean Landis, President, Entrepreneur Growth Capital

Merchant Cash Advance APR Debate (Sean Murray v Ami Kassar)

November 24, 2015
Article by:

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.

Murray Loses Election for ENS Foundation Directorship

May 21, 2023
Article by:

BlockchaindeBanked president Sean Murray was one of two nominees earlier this month for an open director position of the ENS Foundation. ENS stands for the Ethereum Name Service, a protocol that allows users to substitute human readable usernames for long hexadecimal strings commonly associated with crypto addresses.

Instead of one’s address looking like this: 0x64233eAa064ef0d54ff1A963933D0D2d46ab5829, it could be debanked.eth or debanked.com or sean.debanked.com or some other domain name owned by the user.

Murray has been an advocate for ENS names as a form of web-based identity. He was one of the first 500 people in the world to use a .com address as an ENS name and the first in the world to turn a .com address into an NFT on mainnet using the official ENS Namewrapper contract. debanked.com, for example, is not only a website address, but also a crypto address and an NFT. Murray has been studying crypto since 2014 and deployed his first deBanked smart contract to ethereum in 2021.

Murray lost the election in a blowout but has expressed that his candidacy led to some positive changes in the ENS ecosystem. The ENS Foundation represents the technology’s official DAO. Murray’s competition was more qualified than he was for the role. The victor, Alex Van de Sande, helped launch ethereum, launched the first Ethereum wallet and Web3 Browser, and was a co-founder of ENS.

“I anticipate there eventually being some crossover between the traditional financial system and blockchain technology,” Murray said. “A username system would be an integral part of that. I’m not into speculating on coins or anything of that nature.”

Neuromancer and the Origin of Bitcoin

November 18, 2024
Article by:

Is there a deeper secret message hidden in the origin story of Bitcoin? I personally discovered an uncanny relationship between the plot of Neuromancer, a famous 1984 novel authored by William Gibson, and Bitcoin that’s actually gaining traction on social media.

Some readers might remember that on February 24, 2024, I posited that Satoshi Nakamoto was actually Jack Dorsey. It wasn’t until October that I discovered the relationship with Neuromancer. When I merely tweeted out the word Neuromancer without any context whatsoever, Jack Dorsey immediately shared a link to the novel (on Nostr) also without any context. Pretty coincidental timing for a 40-year-old novel.

Dorsey has not confirmed anything but is aware of my postings. So I guess for now this has to be chalked up to being a really good and probably true theory, but not confirmed. While it is theorized that Satoshi Nakamoto would prefer to remain anonymous, Dorsey is unique in that he wears a custom-made t-shirt everywhere that says Satoshi on it. He also wrote a letter to Block’s shareholders earlier this year that was filed with the SEC in which he expressed that Block was following Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision when it comes to crypto matters. Given these very public statements, it seems fair game to publicly draw the connection between himself and Satoshi. The Satoshi name on the shirt stands out for another reason as well because Jack has done this before. More than fifteen years ago, he made a custom shirt with a phone number and wore it all around San Francisco. The number happened to be his personal number and he wanted to see who would call him. The excerpt below is from the book Hatching Twitter.

jACK DORSEY

Readers may also recall that while Jack’s company Block is the largest online business lender in the US, it also generates more than $10 billion in bitcoin revenue annually.

How Erica Bell of Tax Guard Won Second in The Poker Tournament

October 13, 2024
Article by:
Sean Murray, Erica Bell (Tax Guard)
Left: Sean Murray. Right: Erica Bell, Tax Guard

When the final hand of the B2B Finance Expo’s official poker tournament had concluded, Erica Bell, a Business Development Account Executive for Tax Guard, walked away with 2nd place. Bell has enjoyed poker for a long time and knows the game well. She’s even played in tournaments at the Ameristar Casino in Blackhawk, Colorado and won 1st place in one of them.

“The game’s strategy is what I truly enjoy,” Bell told deBanked. “A couple of individuals came up to me and congratulated me [on coming in 2nd].”

Bell, who at least took home a small prize, has worked for Tax Guard for 5 and a half years. For those not familiar, “Tax Guard is a 3rd party due diligence company who provides real-time insights into hidden tax debt of individuals and businesses by retrieving and analyzing IRS data directly from the source, the IRS,” she says.

The company’s services are primarily used by commercial lenders and financial institutions to assess tax-related risks associated with borrowers. Tax Guard is widely known throughout the industry and has been frequently referenced on deBanked. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Hansen Rada, even did a Zoom interview with deBanked during the early lockdown era of Covid.

The company’s value is pretty straightforward, a lot of tax debt is not easily discoverable, and they’ll get the info you don’t even know you’re missing straight from the source.

“By offering earlier visibility into potential tax issues, liabilities, liens, & levies, we help our customers make more informed lending decisions and mitigate financial risks,” Bell explains.

And if there is a hidden tax issue, Tax Guard can proactively work to resolve it and even negotiate a payment plan. One downside of ignoring tax debt as a lender is having to compete with the IRS when they ultimately move to enforce collection.

Clients can use the Tax Guard portal to run reports or integrate their API right into a CRM. Other critical information can be obtained as well including a wage and income transcript from the IRS. “This includes data from W-2s, 1099s, and other income forms, as well as withholding details,” Bell says. “This data provides a comprehensive view of a taxpayer’s reported income and can be critical when assessing financial risks, resolving discrepancies and verifying financial details.”

Obviously, Bell says that anyone interested in learning more can reach out to her directly.

“My role is highly dynamic, being sales, strategic partnership and relationship focused,” Bell says. “I really enjoy working with extremely talented people at Tax Guard, meeting new folks in the finance industry and learning from their perspectives.”

She’s also apparently planning to host her own upcoming friendly poker tournament so it’s safe to say she has no intention of letting her skills get rusty.

How Cesar Valero Won The Tournament And Gets Deals Done

October 2, 2024
Article by:
b2b finance expo poker tournament winner
Left: Cesar Valero, Biz Dev at Spartan Capital. Right: Sean Murray

When Cesar Valero, Business Development Executive at Spartan Capital, sat down at one of the starting poker tables late last month to participate in the kick-off tournament for B2B Finance Expo, it had been almost exactly a year since he last played. His colleague Ryan Capella had finished second that time, which coincidentally had also been for a business event in Las Vegas. But here at B2B in 2024, the Spartan team was competing against a mix of players eager to show off their skills, some of whom play semi-professionally on the side.

According to Valero, they didn’t do any kind of practice ahead of time. “Frank [the CEO] just said ‘make sure you represent,'” he said. And after two and a half hours of impressive play that’s exactly what he did. The dealer and a hired pit boss keeping an eye on all the cards declared Valero the winner where he took home the grand prize gold bracelet and other goodies.

“We were actually really happy because we noticed that–obviously we celebrated a little bit–and then noticed after we’re like, ‘of the top four positions of the last two years, we [Spartan] have two’ that’s pretty good,” Valero said.

But more importantly, at the industry’s largest conference of the year, everyone suddenly knew who Valero was if they didn’t before.

“You can flat out tell them the best marketing at B2B was to win the poker tournament,” Valero said. People came up to him throughout the next two days calling him out by name. “Hey, Cesar!” they shouted, after having heard about his win.

And being the guy everybody wants to talk to is pretty much his job anyway. Spartan Capital provides revenue based financing and works with a large number of referral partners. Valero’s day-to-day is typically spent communicating with ISOs, whether it be phone calls or Zoom calls or in-office meetings, he is catering to what they need and trying to get deals funded. When asked if having a relationship with an ISO is an important part of the job, he said it’s the whole job.

“We’re a fair funder,” he said of Spartan. “We really don’t snub anybody out. Whether you’re the biggest guy in the space or the smallest guy in the space, we’re going to do our best to give you the best customer service we can. Our reps, pretty much nobody is a brand new rep. Everybody’s got experience. They know what they’re talking about.”

“Most deals are pretty straightforward,” he said, “but you always have that 10,15,20% that need a little more love…so it’s a fast paced environment and just try to keep up with it, make sure we’re doing the right service to our customers whether it be an ISO or a [merchant].”

Overall, Valero feels like the industry is on a strong trajectory, especially with tech and e-commerce platforms having rushed in to offer similar funding products to their customers.

“If they’re in it, they see the demand right?” he exclaimed, “and if they’re putting out billions of dollars like I see every quarter in press releases from Amazon or from PayPal or from one of the big players, they’re out there and they’re creating buzz… so better quality borrowers will be flowing in because the need is there across the board.”

Valero isn’t exaggerating about the fast pace. After having gone from the flow of deals to Vegas to even more deals, he couldn’t afford to let our interview about his big win go over the allotted time.

“I got about an hour and 15 minutes to the wire cut-off,” he said emphatically while thanking me for the call. “Let me see if I can do a couple more deals!”

B2B Finance at deBanked

July 5, 2024
Article by:

murray serhantWhen Broker Fair first debuted in 2018, the keynote speaker was none other than Ryan Serhant, then a fast rising New York City real estate broker and star of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing. Today he’s got his own Netflix Series called Owning Manhattan.

“After selling real estate for 12 years, I decided to start my own company,” Serhant says in the trailer for the first episode, “and if you can’t sell, you can’t be here.”

That New York hustle attitude was the connecting link for why Broker Fair chose him despite the broker audience being largely engaged in small business financial services at the time. But since then the small business finance broker community has become increasingly diversified in its product offerings and real estate is frequently one of the assets on the menu.

“People will be surprised how many clients have real estate, not just a [primary home], but they own just a small multifamily down the road that they never touched or tapped into,” said Julio Sencion, Principal at Alta Financial, in a recent interview with deBanked.

Companies like World Business Lenders figured that out a long time ago while still more discovered the business during the covid recovery, leading deBanked to produce a video miniseries about real estate investing in the summer of 2021. The guests ranged from real estate influencer Ralph DiBugnara to NestSeekers International’s Chief Economist Erin Sykes to a couple of old fashioned guys named Danny and Bruce who started investing in real estate across New Jersey long ago.

deBanked also interviewed house-flipper turned real estate tech CEO Andrew Luong of Doorvest, did a deep dive as to why real estate was becoming the side hustle of choice in the industry, and even bought real land using the blockchain for the purpose of a story.

Equipment financing has also taken off, leading deBanked to produce the first ever sales reality series named Equipping The Dream in 2022.

That’s been complemented by regular coverage and even sitdown interviews from Andrew Carman, Steve Geller, and George A. Parker.

deBanked’s Sean Murray has previously presented at the International Factoring Association’s (IFA) Fintech educational event, been a guest on the Coleman Report run by renowned SBA expert Bob Coleman, and moderated panels separately for the New York Institute of Credit and the Alternative Finance Bar Association.

Murray was also the host and producer of the industry’s first ever Broker Battle which took placed in Miami Beach this past January.

deBanked is also affiliated with the largest online small business finance community in the US, DailyFunder, and has produced nearly two dozen events since 2017.

“Back in 2018, there was a question that Serhant posed on stage to the Broker Fair audience to make sure he understood where they were coming from,” Murray said. “‘You guys are all B2B right?’ he said, and I think his characterization was spot on, because B2B is pretty much what we’ve been all along.”

deBanked is collaborating with the Small Business Finance Association on the B2B Finance Expo that’s taking place in Las Vegas on September 23-24. For info, visit: https://www.b2bfinexpo.com

B2B Finance Expo: Las Vegas, September 23-24

June 18, 2024
Article by:

Wynn Las VegasThe inaugural B2B Finance Expo will debut in Las Vegas this Fall from September 23-24 at The Wynn. Powered by deBanked in collaboration with the Small Business Finance Association (SBFA), the conference will bring together the leading lenders, funders, and brokers from across the spectrum of commercial finance, leasing, mortgage, and revenue-based capital products.

“The goal is to bring together leaders in commercial finance at an upscale event focused on delivering value to participants,” said Steve Denis, Executive Director of the SBFA. “Our content will gather industry leaders’ perspectives on partnerships, capital markets, diversifying income streams, and compliance in an environment that balances education, growth, and relationship building.”

“We’ve produced nearly 20 commercial finance related conferences since 2018,” said deBanked founder Sean Murray. “Brokers from all segments of commercial finance looking for a valuable conference to expand their network, learn, and grow their business should attend B2B Finance Expo in Las Vegas this year. It’ll be the biggest one of its kind this Fall.”

B2B Finance ExpThe SBFA is a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring Main Street small businesses have access to the capital they need to grow and strengthen the economy. The SBFA’s mission is to educate policymakers and regulators about the technology-driven platforms emerging in the small business lending market and how their member companies bridge the small business capital gap using innovative financing solutions. Attendees of the conference will have the opportunity to support this initiative.

To register, visit b2bfinexpo.com. To inquire about sponsorship, complete this form here.

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Threads on deBanked


07-03-2019

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...




Found on DailyFunder:

07-03-2019

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...
06-07-2019

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!!!!...
01-28-2019

Quicksilver...
sean murray would have stepped in to stop this but i guess doesnt want to hurt his bottom line...