Articles by deBanked Staff
Lightspeed: Potential to do up to $1B in Merchant Cash Advances
June 15, 2025Lightspeed may have only done $45 million in MCAs in FY 2025 but the point-of-sale company is continuing to grow that particular lucrative segment of its business conservatively, and possibly far below its full potential.
“There is a lot of opportunity. We can move faster if we wanted to,” said Lightspeed CFO Asha Bakshani during the company’s most recent earnings call. “When we look at our peers, for example, they are giving out 1% of their [Gross Transaction Volume] in merchant cash advance. Lightspeed is well below that. 1% of our GTV would be almost $1 billion in merchant cash advance. So when we think about the opportunity, it’s there. It’s just that in this macro, we want to move carefully on a product like Capital. Like I mentioned earlier, our default rates are in the very low single digits, and we want to keep it there.”
Lightspeed estimates its MCA program will grow by 30% in FY 2026. Part of the reason the company has grown its MCA business so conservatively is that it funds 100% of them on balance sheet.
The company advertises that MCA payments are enabled by either split or ACH.
Take This Industry Fraud Evaluation Survey
June 11, 2025Fraud is a growing challenge in the alternative lending space, particularly for lenders and funders that serve small businesses. As fraud tactics evolve – from synthetic identities and doctored bank statements to first-party fraud and account takeovers – funders and lenders face heightened risks that can lead to increased defaults, operational losses, and stricter underwriting processes.
MoneyThumb and deBanked have partnered to conduct a survey across lenders, funders, brokers, banks, and the fintech sector to reveal and better understand how fraud is impacting the industry. The goals are to help underscore the problem / shine a spotlight on an increasingly important sector that adversely impacts the industry and provide information on the most common fraud types and the tools strategies lenders are using to mitigate risk.
Your feedback is completely anonymous, and as a thank-you for participating, you’ll receive an exclusive early copy of the full report—plus additional insights not available to the public.
Check out other joint reports deBanked has previously participated in.
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QuickBooks Capital Continues to Grow
June 8, 2025Intuit’s small business loan program, QuickBooks Capital, is continuing to grow. It generated $35M more revenue in FY Q3 2025 than it did over the same period last year, according to the company’s latest earnings report. Considering Intuit’s total quarterly revenue was $7.8B, its funding business, a small percentage of the total in comparison, is only mentioned in detailed on occasion.
QuickBooks Capital benefits from having a funding button in the widely used QuickBooks Capital software, a feature so effective that they were effectively the sixth largest online small business lender that deBanked tracked in 2024. Its two main products are a term loan and a line of credit.
B2B Finance Expo Returns to Las Vegas This October
June 6, 2025The B2B Finance Expo is returning to Wynn Las Vegas after its incredible inaugural success in 2024. This groundbreaking event will once again bring together leaders from Small Business Lending, Equipment Finance, Real Estate Lending, Revenue Based Financing, and beyond. Over the course of this exclusive two-day event, brokers, lenders, funders, and service providers alike can expect networking opportunities, insight sessions, and much more.
Mark your calendars for October 28 and 29 and for a limited time left take advantage of early bird pricing by REGISTERING NOW.
B2B Finance Expo is powered by deBanked in collaboration with the Small Business Finance Association (SBFA).
Tell Your Merchants to Act on The Texas Legislation
June 5, 2025Unbeknownst to many small businesses in Texas, revenue-based financing will be severely restricted in the state starting September 1, 2025 if the governor permits HB 700 to be finalized into law. For small businesses who might want to have a say on this matter, the Revenue Based Finance Coalition (RBFC) has provided information for merchants to conduct outreach to the appropriate parties. If you have merchants who want to weigh in before it’s too late, please share this link with them.
Govenor Abbott has between now and June 22nd to veto the legislation. If he signs or elects not to sign the bill by that date, the law will take effect on September 1, 2025.
Online Search is King for How Merchants Shop For Funding, Survey Reveals
June 4, 2025Perhaps the most surprising statistic to come out of a 2025 small business lending survey conducted by IOU Financial is that 12% of merchants said they started their search for business funding options from a cold call. But as one might expect, phone calls are not necessarily the direction in which business is moving. Forty-one percent of respondents, for example, complained that they received too many phone calls from multiple reps.
The number one origin point—far above cold calls (12%), friends/referrals (8%), and social media (7%)—was online search (63%). And they’re not just looking at the first website and firing off a form. Fifty-eight percent, for example, said that online reviews were among the most valuable factors in choosing the right business funding provider, while loan calculators and comparison websites/tools also weighed heavily at 49% and 40%, respectively.
Historically, online search primarily meant Google, but according to a TD Bank survey, 30% of small business owners are already turning to AI assistants like ChatGPT for insights on financial health or financing.
And most merchants skip their bank. “More than 70% of small business owners do not apply for business funding with their bank before exploring non-bank options,” the IOU survey found. “This trend highlights a major shift in trust and preference away from traditional banks and toward alternative lenders—which could be driven largely by the desire for speed, flexibility, and ease of access.”
Carl Brabander, EVP of Strategy for IOU Financial, discussed some of the recent findings of this survey at Broker Fair 2025 this past May in New York City.
Texas Commercial Sales-Based Financing Bill Gets Last Minute ACH Ban Amendment
May 27, 2025The Commercial Sales-Based Financing bill that passed through the Texas House of Representatives two weeks ago has now also passed through the Senate, but with a rather controversial amendment. In the Senate version, passed yesterday, and viewable on the right hand side of this document, sales-based financing providers would not be allowed to automatically debit a merchant’s account unless they have a “validly perfected security interest in the recipient’s account under Chapter 9, Business & Commerce Code, with a first priority against the claims of all other persons.” That means any sales-based funding (like an MCA or revenue-based financing loan) would be prohibited from debiting merchants automatically unless they were in true first position. And not just a first position MCA, but first position on all arrangements the merchant has altogether. AND it would have to be perfected in accordance with this statute.
The Senate Amendment:
CERTAIN AUTOMATIC DEBITS PROHIBITED.
A provider or commercial sales-based financing broker may not establish a mechanism for automatically debiting a recipient’s deposit account unless the provider or broker holds a validly perfected security interest in the recipient’s account under Chapter 9, Business & Commerce Code, with a first priority against the claims of all other persons.
Since the main difference between what the Senate and House passed is that one sentence prohibiting automatic debits, they have until June 2nd to decide which version of the passed bill is final.
Sales-based financing is broad. While the term encompasses sales-based purchase transactions (MCAs), firms like Walmart and PayPal engage in loan-based sales-based financing. Both firms, for example, are registered sales-based financing providers in the state of Virginia.
The Texas Senate amendment language is new. It does not resemble anything passed in a state commercial financing disclosure law to date.
An estimated 10% of all sales-based financing in the US takes place with Texas-based businesses.
The Largest Sales-Based Financing Providers
May 27, 2025Who are some of the largest sales-based financing providers in the US? The following companies are repaid as a percentage of sales or revenue, in which the payment amount may increase or decrease according to the volume of sales made or revenue received by the recipient:
| Sales-Based Financing Providers |
| Square |
| PayPal |
| Amazon (via Parafin) |
| Walmart (via Parafin) |
| Shopify |
| Intuit |
| Stripe |
| DoorDash (via Parafin) |
The State of Washington has also recently announced it will be offering sales-based financing through a Department of Commerce initiative.
Among those listed above, Square recently published a White Paper on the impact of its sales-based financing.
“Square Loans has opened credit to populations who traditionally have had less access to business loans. As of the third quarter of 2024, approximately 58% of Square Loan customers are women-owned businesses, compared to the industry average of 19%.38 And 15% of Square Loans go to Black/African-owned businesses compared to an industry average of 6.6%, while 14% of loans go to Hispanic/Latinx-owned businesses compared to the industry average of 11.3%.”
