Articles by deBanked Staff
And The Best Online Bank is… LendingClub?
July 25, 2021
The online lending community that once offered borrowers the opportunity to “bypass the banks and get better rates” is now technically the best online bank. Radius Bank, awarded best online bank of 2020, fully merged itself into LendingClub this month following the acquisition earlier this year. Radius bank’s website now points to bank.lendingclub.com.
It may be a bit jarring to those who remember Lending Club as a peer-to-peer lending platform, to see the FDIC-insurance guaranty at the bottom alongside offerings like a checking account. Bankrate.com added LendingClub to its rankings this weekend. It gives the company a score of 4.3, a good number of notches below the top score held by Ally Bank at 4.9.
LendingClub is just one of several fintech lenders that are fully transitioning to banks. Square flexed its new banking status starting this month, while Kabbage, under the American Express umbrella, has been pushing business checking accounts pretty hard.
deBanked TV Surpasses 400 Helpful Videos on Small Business Finance and Fintech
July 23, 2021
deBanked TV surpassed 400 total videos this week in its free library of content. More than 40 such videos contain basic tutorials and terminology definitions for folks in the SMB lending and MCA industries.
“The content is highly focused,” deBanked President Sean Murray said. “It’s small business lending, real estate, MCA, etc. There’s content for newbies and seasoned veterans aimed at brokers, lenders, and more.”
deBanked has produced more than a dozen original videos as part of an industry docu-series that began in 2020.
Murray also airs live on deBanked TV every Monday and Wednesday at 12:15pm ET where he discusses industry news and offers informative advice.
Square Capital is Now Just a Bank Loan Product
July 20, 2021
Square Capital has been reduced to just one of several banking products under the Square Financial Services umbrella. That’s one result of Square successfully becoming a bank earlier this year.
Loans will be one product offered alongside checking accounts, savings accounts, and debit cards.
Just as before, Square’s loans will be repaid by diverting a percentage of a business’s card sales. The methodology is derived from its merchant cash advance roots, but what’s different is that a Square loan has a fixed repayment term.
“Pay it back automatically,” Square says of its loan product. “You won’t have to schedule any payments. We just ask that you meet your minimum every 60 days.”
Square has originated more than $9 billion in small business loans since inception and is one of the largest small business lenders in the country.
Real Estate Investing For Beginners and More
July 6, 2021deBanked met with Kurtavious Ball, a physician assistant and savvy real estate estate investor in Philadelphia. Ball started small, risking about $30,000 he had set aside for a startup venture. If it didn’t work out, Ball said he was still young enough and capitalized enough to weather the loss. After doing a lot of reading and listening to gurus, Ball said the best course of action was to just plow forward and give it a try. He’s happy he did.
deBanked’s interview with Ball is part of a nationwide docuseries with business finance and real estate professionals.
Real Estate Docuseries
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Merchant Cash Advance Tutorials
New York Appellate Division Reaffirms That Merchant Cash Advances Are Not Loans
June 23, 2021A series of eight merchant cash advance agreeements were not loans, said the First Department of the New York Appellate Division.
In Strategic Funding Source, Inc. et al. v. Steenbok Inc. et al, the defendants filed for summary judgment to dismiss the complaint. The Court denied it and defendants appealed, causing the Appellate Division to determine whether or not eight merchant cash agreements between the parties were actually usurious loans.
Per the eight merchant agreements, repayment to plaintiff was contingent on future receivables existing. Accordingly, the cash advance was not a loan and is thus not a usurious transaction (see Champion Auto Sales, LLC v Pearl Beta Funding, LLC, 159 AD3d 507 [1st Dept 2018], lv denied 31 NY3d 910 [2018]).
It may have all been for naught because the parties actually settled the case two weeks prior to the decision, according to the public docket (See Index No: 2021-00877).
President of Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota Says That Dogecoin is a Ponzi Scheme
June 20, 2021
A LinkedIn poll posted by the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase that asked followers to weigh in on the pronunciation of Dogecoin, drew an unexpected response.
Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota, replied that it was pronounced “pon-zi.”
Kashkari, who spent 3 years at the US Treasury where he established and led the Office of Financial Stability, has been a vocal critic of cryptocurrency. In May, he reiterated that the crypto space was a “burning garbage dump of fraud.”
This was said as part of a series of tweets that claimed Bitcoin was “utterly useless as a currency” and sarcastically dared the cryptofaithful to tell him how many people were actually using Bitcoin to buy Teslas vs. fiat.
Thanks. A few years ago I publicly declared the crypto space a burning garbage dump of fraud. Didn’t realize it was this blatant.
— Neel Kashkari (@neelkashkari) May 23, 2021
deBanked to Livestream from the SEAA Show in Bonita Springs
May 21, 2021May 24th LIVE schedule: 4:45pm – 6:30pm
May 25th LIVE schedule: 9:00 – 10:45am, 3:00 – 4:00pm, 5:00 – 6:30pm
deBanked will be streaming live from the Southeast Acquirers Association conference on May 24th and 25th in Bonita Springs, FL. The payments show celebrating its 20th anniversary is expected to have nearly 800 people IN PERSON.
The livestream will be available at scheduled times at deBanked.com/tv/. We will be speaking with executives across the payments and small business finance industries.
North Carolina Joins States Proposing Commercial Financing Disclosures
May 12, 2021
North Carolina is the latest in a series of states to introduce a commercial financing disclosure bill.
The “Small Business Truth in Financing Act” introduced on May 11th, would cover business loans, factoring, and merchant cash advances.
The language was copy and pasted from bills elsewhere, like the recent one in Connecticut. The “double dipping” term is noticeably absent from this one, however.
The North Carolina bill was introduced by Rep James D. Gailliard (D). If it succeeds in moving forward, it’s written to go into effect on May 1, 2022.
