Articles by deBanked Staff
Fintech Companies Settle “True Lender” Lawsuit With Colorado Attorney General
August 19, 2020
Avant, Marlette Funding, and several banks consented to a settlement with the Colorado Attorney General earlier this month to close the books on litigation that has gone on for more than three years.
The lawsuits alleged that Avant and Marlette, who enjoyed bank partnerships, were themselves not covered by federal bank preemption and that they had violated the Uniform Consumer Credit Code of the state by among other things, charging excessive costs to consumers.
After a lengthy battle, Avant, Marlette, WebBank, and Cross River Bank entered into a joint settlement agreement with the Colorado Attorney General that prohibits the fintech companies from charging more than 36% APR in the State of Colorado, along with requiring that the fintech companies maintain a state lending license and engage in a long list of new and redundant measures of compliance.
Lendified Is Still Trying To Pull Through
August 18, 2020
On June 29th, deBanked ran a story titled Canadian Small Business Lender Looks Doomed In Wake of COVID-19. It was about Lendified. Several of the company’s top executives had recently resigned and its financial situation was dismal.
“Lendified is in default in respect of credit facilities with its secured lenders,” the company disclosed at the time. “Forbearance and standstill agreements are being discussed with these senior lenders, with none indicating to date that any enforcement action is expected although each is in a position to do so, however, no formal agreements in this regard have been concluded as of the date hereof.”
Among the company’s last ditch plans to recapitalize was the raising of equity through a private placement. But that was made impossible by the Ontario Securities Commission who entered an order prohibiting any such transaction for “failing to file certain outstanding continuous disclosure documents in a timely manner.” The filing failures, of course, were due to the issues they were facing. This order just compounded them.
The Commission partially revoked the order on August 14th, paving the way for the private placement to continue. Lendified is only seeking up to $1.4M, the proceeds of which would be used to “pay, among other things, outstanding fees owed to the Company’s auditors and other service providers, public and filing fees, legacy accounts payable as well as for general working capital purposes.” The company further said that “Completion of the Private Placement will help the Company in its efforts to prepare and file the outstanding continuous disclosure documents with the applicable regulatory authorities.”
Lendified offers no guarantees that the private placement will be successful. The company sold off a subsidiary, JUDI.AI, in July.
Where Fintech Ranks on the Inc 5000 List for 2020
August 12, 2020Here’s where fintech and online lending rank on the Inc 5000 list for 2020:
| Ranking | Company Name | Growth |
| 30 | Ocrolus | 7,919% |
| 46 | Yieldstreet | 6,103% |
| 351 | Direct Funding Now | 1,297% |
| 402 | GROUNDFLOOR | 1,141% |
| 486 | LoanPaymentPro | 946% |
| 534 | LendingPoint | 862% |
| 539 | OppLoans | 860% |
| 566 | dv01 | 830% |
| 647 | Fund That Flip | 724% |
| 1031 | Fundera | 449% |
| 1035 | Nav | 447% |
| 1053 | Fundrise | 442% |
| 1103 | Bitcoin Depot | 409% |
| 1229 | Smart Business Funding | 365% |
| 1282 | Global Lending Services | 349% |
| 1360 | CommonBond | 327% |
| 1392 | Forward Financing | 319% |
| 1398 | Fundation Group | 318% |
| 1502 | Fountainhead Commercial Capital | 293% |
| 1736 | Seek Capital | 246% |
| 1746 | PIRS Capital | 244% |
| 1776 | Braviant Holdings | 240% |
| 1933 | Choice Merchant Solutions | 218% |
| 2001 | Fundomate | 212% |
| 2257 | Lighter Capital | 185% |
| 2466 | Bankers Healthcare Group | 167% |
| 2501 | Fund&Grow | 165% |
| 2537 | Central Diligence Group | 162% |
| 2761 | Lendtek | 145% |
| 3062 | Shore Funding Solutions | 127% |
| 3400 | Biz2Credit | 110% |
| 3575 | National Funding | 103% |
| 4344 | Yalber & Got Capital | 76% |
| 4509 | Expansion Capital Group | 70% |
LendingClub’s Loan Originations Dropped By 90% in Q2
August 4, 2020LendingClub’s Q2 financials revealed that the company loaned $325.8M for the quarter, down 90% year-over-year. The company also recorded a net loss of $78.5M.
“In the current challenging environment, we have remained focused on the things we can control and are successfully executing against our strategic priorities,” CEO Scott Sanborn commented. “We are pleased with our ability to maintain strong levels of liquidity, are encouraged by the payment behavior of our members and the resilience of the loan portfolio and remain focused on the acquisition of Radius Bank.”
The company had $338M in the bank at quarter-end, up from the $244M in the bank at year-end 2019.
Square Capital Resumes Business Lending
August 4, 2020
Square Capital, the small business lending division of Square, resumed offers for its “core flex loans” in late July, the company announced. However, there will be “stricter eligibility criteria.”
Square Capital made no core flex loans in Q2, having paused in mid-March on news of the impending crisis.
The company pivoted to PPP lending in Q2 in the interim and through this program managed to fund over 80,000 small businesses for a grand total of $873 million. The average came out to approximately $11,000 per loan.
Square says that in PPP they “expanded awareness of Square Capital as 60% of [their] PPP borrowers had never before received a loan through Square.”
Loss rates during Q2 were about 2.5x prev-COVID levels, a range they accurately predicted might happen at the end of Q1.
Did Sealed Case Get Leaked on Bloomberg News Site?
August 4, 2020
A series of Bloomberg News stories in 2018 appear to have put a handful of companies in the cross-hairs of regulators, recent legal filings indicate, and Bloomberg is enjoying unusual status in the saga.
One example is the copy of a federal lawsuit brought by the SEC that appeared on Bloomberglaw.com on Monday, July 27th. A summary of the lawsuit and the full 58-page complaint were broadcast through the Bloomberg-branded website in Google News and were quickly picked up by industry observers who pointed out that the complaint referenced an ongoing undercover investigation by law enforcement agencies.
It was an unusual reveal.
Except when deBanked tried to authenticate the documents by attempting to retrieve an original copy through the court system, we were unsuccessful because the entire case was sealed.
The case and an identical copy of the complaint, which Bloomberg had been circulating all week, were finally unsealed on Friday, July 31st. The case number was the only thing different.
The odd sequence of events suggests that Bloomberg Law may have inadvertently blown the lid on a case almost a week before anyone was supposed to know about it, including the defendants. Over the weekend, one defendant was upset that he had not been able to access the docket until the evening of July 31st. That was 4 days after the world had already gotten a glimpse of it.
FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra on Merchant Cash Advances
August 3, 2020
Following recent lawsuits filed by the FTC, Commissioner Rohit Chopra made the following statements earlier today in an announcement about merchant cash advances:
As the Commission proceeds into litigation in these matters and further studies this market, I hope that we will uncover additional information about business practices in this opaque industry. In particular, we should closely scrutinize the marketing claim that these payday-style products are “flexible,” with payments contingent on the credit card receivables of a small business. In reality, this structure may be a sham, since many of these products require fixed daily payments, and lenders can file “confessions of judgment” upon any slowdown in payments, with no notice or due process for borrowers.
This raises serious questions as to whether these “merchant cash advance” products are actually closed-end installment loans, subject to federal and state protections including anti-discrimination laws, such as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and usury caps. The stakes are high for millions of small businesses.
Rapid Finance Resumes Funding
July 29, 2020Rapid Finance is funding again, according to posts made by the company on social media.
“Now that most states are in the process of beginning to function normally, many small businesses are back in operation and we’re excited to announce that we have resumed accepting NEW financing applications!”
