Articles by deBanked Staff
IOU Financial Funded $12.1M in March
April 8, 2021
IOU Financial originated $12.1M in funding to small businesses last month, the company revealed. It was IOU’s biggest loan volume month since the beginning of the pandemic.
The figure was included in an announcement regarding the company’s intention to repurchase up to $2M of Convertible Debentures.
“The move to repurchase corporate debt comes after a year of strategic initiatives as part of IOU’s Pandemic Resilience Plan that focused on reducing corporate expenses while reaffirming commitments from its diverse portfolio of funding sources and capitalizing on new opportunities to continue to support small businesses in 2020,” IOU said.
“IOU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (‘Pandemic Resilience Plan’) put the Company in a position of strength to consolidate its stake in developing the opportunities ahead,” said Phil Marleau, CEO. “We are proud to be able to stand with our network of brokers and small business owners as we prepare for the economic recovery with great optimism.”
Before the pandemic, IOU originated $154M in funding for all of 2019.
Implementation of New York’s Commercial Financing Disclosure Law Delayed
April 6, 2021The implementation of New York’s commercial financing disclosure law has been pushed back. Originally scheduled to go into effect in June of 2021, an amending bill changed the date to January 1, 2022.
The only other material change of note is that the exemption from the law for transactions greater than $500,000 has been increased to $2.5 million.
deBanked Announces SPAC
April 1, 2021April Fools 2021
deBanked employees were summoned to an all-hands meeting in the company’s modest Brooklyn, NY headquarters yesterday afternoon to bear witness to a special announcement.
“We’re launching a SPAC,” deBanked president and chief editor Sean Murray said to a stunned room. “I’ve been writing about fintech for more than ten years, but an inspirational meme posted by a bot on twitter got me thinking. And I was just like, ‘You know what? F*** it, let’s just buy the whole fintech industry.'”
Everyone quickly agreed that it was a genius move.
“What was the last stimulus? like what, $1.9 trillion or something? We’ll raise at least 10x that amount in our IPO,” he continued. “No financial technology company is off limits, we’re going to buy them all. I can’t believe no one has thought of this yet!”
Murray realized that such a brilliant strategy was likely to rattle the largest banks and he said that he had already placed calls to Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan and David Solomon at Goldman Sachs to ease them into his swift rise to financial power.
“I mean did I actually speak to them? Technically per se not really, but I heard them speak on Clubhouse of which I am an elite exclusive member,” Murray said.
When pressed for details about this Clubhouse conversation, Murray backpedaled and said he actually just read an article about Clubhouse but that the article referenced Elon Musk and that he was basically just as important as the famed bankers. Several sources who wished to remain anonymous said that Murray was only invited to Clubhouse after shamelessly begging for an invitation on twitter.
Attempts to verify his membership revealed a profile picture where he is giving a thumbs up while holding a glass of scotch, one of which he said came from a bottle that cost more than I would ever make in my whole life. A fact check, however, revealed that it was really just expired apple juice that a building maintenance worker had left out near the common area garbage disposal.
When asked to explain this, Murray said, “Bro, why do you think we’re doing a SPAC? Once we have the money, we’ll be drinking freaking Apple computers!”
By the end of the big company meeting, Murray pulled out a joint and began puffing it furiously through a mouth hole he cut open in his 7 simultaneously-worn covid masks, prompting one staff member to ask if his fanciful plan was at all related to New York’s newly enacted marijuana law.
“Wait, you mean this sh*t’s legal now?” he asked. “F***, make it two SPACs then!”
April Fools 🙂
Tune in Today Live: debanked.com/tv
March 31, 2021Update: The recording is here
deBanked will be streaming live today at approximately 12:15 with special guest Jennie Villano of NewCo Capital Group. She will be joined by host Sean Murray in the studio. This is not a Zoom or virtual discussion. There is no need to register. Anyone can tune in free at debanked.com/tv or debanked.tv
Merchant Cash Advance Facebook Group Hits 1,000 Members
March 26, 2021
The Merchant Cash Advance facebook group, a community created and administered by deBanked, has reached 1,000 members. The social media group is a popular place for those in the non-bank business finance community to engage with each other online.
“We’re seeing an uptick in collaborative business development, especially among smaller brokerage organizations and those who work independently on their own,” deBanked President Sean Murray said. “A lot of ideas, motivation, referrals, and deal-making is being conducted online, more-so than before because of the 2020 lockdowns where in-person collaboration slowed to a crawl.”
Separately, deBanked shares common ownership with DailyFunder, the largest b2b finance community on the web.
“We actually witnessed a very insightful trend on DailyFunder,” Murray said. “Approximately 7.5% of the active membership that existed on March of 2020, had left their jobs or closed their business by March of 2021. It sounds troublesome on its face except that we added more members than we lost in that timeframe. More people came in than left, a net increase. I think the data is pointing to the future being very strong!”
NY Court Says MCA Agreement is a Factoring Agreement, Not a Loan
March 22, 2021
A New York Supreme Court judge that was presiding over a breach of contract claim (653596/2018) in a merchant cash advance agreement, said he was bound to follow the decision issued in Champion Auto Sales, the landmark appellate ruling in 2018.
In Principis Capital LLC v Team Van Eyk, Inc. et al, Principis sued the defendants over a breach of contract. Defendants “did not deny the facts underlying the motion or the the amount due,” the judge said, “but asserted instead that the Agreement is not an agreement for the purchase of future receivables; but is instead, a criminally usurious loan, and is therefore void as a matter of public policy.”
This defense actually led to victory for the plaintiff.
The Appellate Division, First Department, in Champion Auto Sales, LLC v Pearl Beta Funding, LLC (159 AD3d 507, 507 [1st Dept], lv denied 31 NY3d 910 [2018]) has considered this issue, involving a merchant agreement substantially similar to the agreement in this matter, and has held that the type of agreement involved in this case is a factoring agreement rather than a usurious loan. This court is bound to follow Champion and, therefore finds that the Agreement is a factoring agreement and not, as defendants assert, a usurious loan. There are, therefore, no genuine triable issues of fact, and plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment on its complaint.
Case closed.
Prosper Marketplace Posts $18.5M Profit for 2020
March 15, 2021
Prosper Marketplace reported a $18.5M profit for 2020, up from a net loss of $13.7M in 2019, marking yet another online lender that successfully weathered Covid.
In 2020, Prosper originated $1.5B in loans, $1.4B of which were originated through their Whole Loan Channel.
Like Lending Club, the company has long retreated from its peer-to-peer lending roots, but still operates a platform where individual retail investors can buy notes, whereas Lending Club terminated theirs completely.
Prosper generated $100 million in revenue in 2020 and had 353 full-time employees at year-end.
Prosper is not publicly traded but is required to file regular financial statements with the SEC because it sells notes to retail investors.
LendingClub Talks Earnings Post Radius-Bank Acquisition
March 11, 2021
“It’s really hard to imagine a better time to be launching a digital bank,” said LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn on the company’s Q4 earnings call. “First up, we’ll be building on Radius’ multi-award winning online and mobile deposit offering to make it very easy for our customers to manage their lending, spending and savings in a holistic fashion.”
The company reported a Q4 net loss of $26.7M on $75.9M in revenue and originated $912M in loans. Their status of being a bank, however, is only just beginning. CFO Tom Casey explained the following:
In addition to lowering our funding cost of deposits, our new marketplace bank will capture significant financial benefits from being a bank and having a marketplace. [….]For every $100 million of loans we originate, we generate about $4 million through an origination and servicing fee when we sell the loans in the marketplace. The vast majority of this fee-based revenue is realized immediately and without requiring a significant amount of capital. However, it is highly dependent on origination volume.
[…]
We can now bolster this revenue stream with bank revenue generated by loans held for investment on our balance sheet. As you can see on the left side of the page, every $100 million of loans we hold on the balance sheet should generate additional marginal profitability of approximately $12 million. And when you compare that to the $4 million in the marketplace, that’s 3 times more. And this recurring revenue is not dependent on originations in any given quarter.
LendingClub experienced unique success during the pandemic, stating that loan performance exceeded their expectations.
“Coming out of the pandemic,” Sanborn said, “the strength of our underwriting has now also been cycle-tested. Losses on loans issued pre-COVID are in line with our pre-pandemic expectations, and loans issued since the pandemic are some of our best-performing loans in recent years.”
