Articles by deBanked Staff

Amazon’s Seller Lending Program Receivables Cool Off

According to documents purportedly obtained by Business Insider in January, Amazon had planned to increase its business loan operations in 2023, estimating that its loan receivables would eventually exceed $2B. Instead, the receivables figure has been slowly going in reverse, according to an examination of the company’s regular quarterly earnings reports. Amazon’s seller lending receivables hit a high of $1.4B in Q3 of 2022 but then ticked downward to $1.3B by year end. In Q1 of this year, those receivables had gone down again to $1.2B.

Amazon’s Seller Lending Receivables
2016: $661M
2017: $692M
2018: $710M
2019: $863M
2020: $381M (covid)
2021: $1B
2022 (Q1): $1.1B
2022 (Q2): $1.3B
2022 (Q3): $1.4B
2022 (Q4): $1.3B
2023 (Q1): $1.2B

Not counted in these figures is financing to Amazon sellers conducted through a third party. Amazon teamed up with Parafin on merchant cash advances, Lendistry for Business Loans, and Marcus for lines of credit, for example. Data on funding from these parties is a little more difficult to come by.

Enova Originated $770M in Small Business Loans in Q1

Enova originated $770M in small business loans in Q1, according to the latest earnings report. The company posted an overall impressive net income of $51M to boot.

“We delivered another quarter of solid top- and bottom-line results, with our balanced approach to growth enabling us to successfully navigate the current macroeconomic backdrop,” said David Fisher, Enova’s CEO, in an official statement.

SMB credit products now makeup 65% of Enova’s portfolio, up from 56% last year.

“Given our strong brand presence, minimal competition and diverse portfolio, we continue to see a long runway ahead to drive meaningful volume,” Fisher said.

Although the company’s eye is still on growth they are being intentionally conservative given the macroeconomic conditions.

“…with the good credit metrics and entering a more seasonably attractive time of year, that gives us incentive to accelerate originations a bit, which I also mentioned on the call,” said Fisher. “And those could push up the metrics a bit because, it’s important to remember, there’s 2 ways of accelerating originations. You can open up your credit model and bring in more lower credit quality customers or you can spend more per customer and attract more higher credit quality customers. And we vary those tactics based on what we’re seeing in our data each and every day. And we’re twisting those dials each and every day to adjust marketing spend and adjust where our credit metrics are.”