Articles by deBanked Staff
Amazon Discontinues Its In-House Business Loans
March 9, 2024
After deBanked reported that Amazon’s on-balance-sheet business loan receivables had remained steady throughout 2023, the company has abruptly decided to terminate its in-house lending program altogether.
Through an email confirmed to Fortune, Amazon ended its in-house term loan business on March 6. That same story says that they will continue to work with third party lenders and funders as they have been doing for a while. Some of their partners include Lendistry, SellersFi, and Parafin.
The in-house program had been running since 2011 and was first discovered by deBanked in 2013.
While the company was shy about disclosing origination figures, it carried approximately $1.3B in loan receivables on its books throughout last year.
The Amazon news coincides with the announcement that business loan rival Funding Circle has decided to exit the US market. Funding Circle US is currently up for sale.
Wow we sort of called this @amazon sellers pic.twitter.com/MOWsPWxcb1
— Amazon Sellers ASGTG (@AmazonASGTG) March 7, 2024
FOR SALE: Funding Circle US?
March 8, 2024
Funding Circle has decided to focus just on its UK business. The company is open to selling off its US business, it revealed.
“Whilst the US business offers attractive long term growth, it also requires a significant amount of cash and capital to grow the SBA proposition and we don’t believe that this is the best course of action for the Group,” said Funding Circle CEO Lisa Jacobs. “We have received indications of interest for the US business and will update further in due course.”
The US segment originated $491M in 2023 while generating $40.4M in revenue and a $29M net loss. That loss was steeper than the $11.6M recorded in 2022.
Funding Circle had just recently secured an SBLC license after years of lobbying for the SBA to end the 40-year pause. When that happened, it was anticipated to be a big boon for them.
Compared to the competition in 2023, Funding Circle’s American origination volume was only 1/6th that of Enova’s.
The Schedule at a Glance
March 7, 2024See what’s up next on the 2024 Agenda:
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Broker Fair 2024 – New York City – May 20, 2024 Venue: Metropolitan Pavilion Hotel: Renaissance New York Chelsea Hotel Preshow Venue (Evening May 19): Somewhere Nowhere Register Here B2B Finance Expo – Las Vegas – Fall 2024 |
Small Business Administration Upgrades its Business Loan Marketplace
March 5, 2024
Add the SBA to the list of organizations capitalizing on the popularity of business loan marketplaces. The Administration recently announced the next generation of its Lender Match tool.
“The enhanced Lender Match will provide Americans seeking funding to start and grow their businesses with a simple, online tool that will more effectively match them with the SBA’s competitive lending products and additional offerings from a trusted network of banks and private lenders,” the SBA said.
The updated homepage says that the tool will match applicants with competitive rates and fees while offering unique benefits like lower down payments, flexible overhead requirements, and no collateral needed for some loans.
“Borrowers will now be able to easily view all of their matched lenders in one place, allowing the borrower to find and compare lenders to help them decide where to apply for a loan. The enhanced tool will also verify borrowers and screen for fraud to streamline the process for both lenders and borrowers. Importantly, with Lender Match, small businesses that are not matched to lenders will be connected to the SBA’s local network of free advisors to help them get capital-ready.”
The SBA says that it gets 50,000 requests for capital every month through Lender Match, a platform which now has nearly 1,000 SBA lenders and 257 community-based lenders.
Matching borrowers with lenders is big business right now. In January, for example, SoFi launched its own small business loan marketplace.
Louisiana Introduces Commercial Financing Disclosure Bill
March 3, 2024Louisiana is the latest state to introduce a commercial financing disclosure bill. SB 335 is a copy & paste of the law that recently passed in Florida.
Other states with pending legislation on the subject include Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and Maryland.
You can read the Louisiana bill here.
Intuit Experiences Big Business Loan Surge
February 26, 2024Intuit experienced a significant surge in small business lending activity, according to the company’s most recent earnings report, originating $469M in FY Q2 2024 (which ended Jan 31, 2024) which was up from $279M in FY Q1 2024. That’s a jump of nearly 70%! Intuit makes these loans via Quickbooks Capital through a partnership with WebBank. The increase warranted no mention during the earnings call.
The positive sentiment echoes that of its rivals, including Square Loans and Enova who both just reported their biggest quarters ever for originations.
Square Generated $4.78B in Business Loans in 2023
February 22, 2024
Block’s business loan division, Square Loans, had a massive year in 2023, generating $4.78 billion in loans. That was $1.5 billion more than its closest competitor Enova and up from $4.06 billion in 2022.
Data of this sort is becoming harder to come by industry wide. Several publicly traded firms that once highlighted their origination volumes have since sought to minimize disclosure of it. (This is an approximate list of the largest online small business lenders and merchant cash advance providers in the US.) While Square still makes their origination figures available, it warrants no mention on the Block quarterly earnings calls because its impact on the overall business is small. Block generated $21.92 billion in net revenue in 2023 for example, $9.5 billion of which stemmed from its bitcoin business.
The Biggest Small Business Funders
February 21, 2024Although all of the specific data isn’t entirely available, we’ve compiled a short list of who the largest small business funders were in 2023:
1. Square
2. Enova
3. PayPal
4. Shopify
5. Amazon
6. Intuit
7. Parafin
