Articles by deBanked Staff
B2B Finance Expo Stuns With Inaugural Event
September 24, 2024The inaugural B2B Finance Expo made its presence known in Las Vegas on Monday. In less than 4 months time since ticket sales opened the two-day conference logged approximately 700 registrations, quickly solidifying it as the top destination for commercial finance professionals in the US in 2024.
The conference welcomed folks from: SBA lending, factoring, equipment financing, revenue based financing, unsecured lending, real estate financing, fintech, investment banking, traditional banking, and more. Attendees ranged from CEOs to business development officers to loan brokers to lawyers to tech engineers.
Today is the 2nd and final day of the event.
Walmart Now a Direct Funder in the Merchant Cash Advance Industry
September 15, 2024
Ready to enjoy easy access to cash advance funds and flexible financing options? Fuel your growth on Walmart.com with our suite of options.
– Walmart.com
Walmart, which made headlines recently with third party MCA funders Parafin and Payoneer, is now funding MCAs directly as well. The new programs, known as Capital by Walmart and Capital for WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services), were recently placed on its Marketplace page. Capital by Walmart promotes the program as being “1 flat fee” and “Repayment deductions based on your future sales.”
An explainer video that went live on August 1st says that they can fund you themselves or fund you through third parties. Video here:
Further, Walmart’s site states that for their in-house funding, they collect from merchants via their Marketplace payouts each settlement cycle. “In case of insufficient funds in the settlement account, we may debit your bank account,” it says.
A Walmart MCA is invite-only for the time being.
Walmart didn’t raise any mention of its funding programs or partners in its latest fiscal quarterly earnings report but did stress that Walmart Marketplace had grown by 32%.
Lenders, Brokers Doubtful That Merchants Would Use Their Domain Names as Collateral if They Could
September 12, 2024Only 26% of respondents said that merchants would use their business’s website domain name as collateral for a loan (presumably if they were given the option to). This according to an informal poll conducted on LinkedIn that asked that very question without any context or clarification. Forty eight percent of respondents straight up said that merchants would not use their domain name as collateral for a loan. Ironically, many secured loans with liens on all assets would already include domain names among those assets.
Back in April, deBanked predicted that lending specifically against a domain as collateral was a product likely to happen in the near future. The following month a domain name registrar partnered up with a peer-to-peer lending site that touted the use of blockchain technology. The first ever domain name loan executed by smart contract actually happened in January of this year, however, by deBanked.
Anticipated Attendance to B2B Finance Expo Surges
September 12, 2024
Registrations for the inaugural B2B Finance Expo taking place Sept 23-24 at Wynn, Las Vegas have already exceeded attendance to deBanked CONNECT MIAMI 2024 and may well surpass Broker Fair 2024’s turnout in New York City. Due to this overwhelming interest the opportunity to buy tickets may end soon. Make sure your ticket is secured here.
Interest in the event, which will encompass commercial finance folks from across across SBA, CRE, MCA, Equipment Financing, term loans, LOCs, factoring, investment banking, and more, is quickly propelling B2B Finance Expo to be the largest commercial finance event of the year. Brokers, lenders, funders, vendors, tech, data, legal, leads, and more are among those registered to attend. The featured guest speaker is Steve McLaughlin, CEO of FT Partners.
Brokers will benefit from the wide array of relationship partners available at the show. The event has the backing of the Small Business Finance Association (SBFA) and deBanked.
Consumer Debt Collection Protections to Apply to Commercial Debts in California
September 9, 2024
SB1286 is on its way to the California governor’s desk. In the era of state-based commercial finance legislation this bill stands out for its unique focus on the collections process.
“Existing law, the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (RFDCPA), prohibits debt collectors from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the collection of consumer debts and requires debtors to act fairly in entering into and honoring those debts,” the bill’s authors wrote. “This bill would recast those provisions to expand the scope of those provisions to additionally prohibit debt collectors from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the collection of covered commercial debts…”
In a CounselorLibrary BizFinLaw Alert, Hudson Cook attorneys Kate Fisher and Bob Gage, wrote of it:
What would this bill mean for you if you provide financing to California businesses? First, don’t assume that the law won’t apply to you just because you originated a debt. The RFDCPA, unlike most debt collection laws, applies to a person collecting its own debt in its own name. Second, be aware that the bill defines “covered commercial credit transaction” broadly enough that any business that owes you money, regardless of the form of the transaction, might have rights under the RFDCPA if the original amount financed or lease amount was $500,000 or less. If you determine (or your lawyer tells you) that some debts owed to you might be covered if the bill goes into effect, then you’ll need to see what new obligations the law imposes on you.
DailyFunder Adds Real Estate Lending Forum
September 7, 2024
DailyFunder, the largest online community of small business finance professionals in the US, has added a real estate lending subforum to its platform. The new category marks the first time any category has been added to the platform in more than a decade. Unsecured business lending and merchant cash advances have for a long time dominated the user content.
According to the site, financing secured by real estate has experienced rising organic interest over time to the point where it warrants separation.
“It has become obvious over time that more and more real estate financing deals are being pitched in the Deal Bin so we have decided to make an entire category just for that,” the site said. “We can use this [new real estate lending] subforum for posting relevant deals or discussions. We have tried to move over a bunch of related posts so that they’re viewable in one place here but it’s hard to go through so many as this forum has racked up nearly 185,000 posts overall so we obviously didn’t hit them all.”
The category description says “Commercial, residential, hard money, mortgages, raw land, refis, cash out, construction, and all real estate lending” and it can be used to discuss the business or to post deals looking for lenders. It is completely free to use the DailyFunder forum. Users only need to register to post. Brokers and lenders rely on it every day. As of last public report, the site was garnering 2 million annual page views in 2021.
Funding Circle UK Now Simpler, Leaner After Selling US Arm
September 5, 2024Funding Circle published its first financial statements since divesting its US business. The international small business lender’s primary market had always been the UK. In its latest shareholder presentation, Funding Circle explained that 92% of its income comes from fees.
Specifically:
53% transaction fees
27% servicing fees
12% drawdown fees
Overall, the company’s financial picture was pretty good for the first half, generating £79.9M in revenue and a small profit (before tax). The company should be well on its way to continued profitability given its plan to reduce headcount by 120 while focusing more on management layers and productivity, a plan which includes generative AI tools. One slide explains that it is now a “simpler, leaner and profitable business.”
Funding Circle pioneered peer-to-peer lending in the small business finance market. iBusiness Funding, a subsidiary of Ready Capital is the company that acquired its US business.
Dream Data Services Files Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
August 29, 2024Dream Data Services LLC filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy last week. The New Jersey-based company had claimed to sell MCA leads including Submissions with all of the merchant’s information. Alan Tunit was declared as the sole member of the LLC. Dream Data Services claimed on its petition that it only had assets of between $0 – $50,000 and liabilities of $100,001 – $500,000.
