Articles by deBanked Staff
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.
In Wake of FTC’s Loss of Power, It Turns to Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act?
May 11, 2021
The FTC suffered a huge blow when the US Supreme Court revoked its presumed authority to seek restitution under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act, so much so that a pending lawsuit it had against RCG Advances, LLC, appeared to be in mortal danger.
On Tuesday, however, attorneys for the FTC informed the Court that it intended to file an amended complaint that would seek civil penalties for violations of Section 521 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
According to the FTC, “The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires financial institutions – companies that offer consumers financial products or services like loans, financial or investment advice, or insurance – to explain their information-sharing practices to their customers and to safeguard sensitive data.”
Section 521 prohibits the obtaining of customer information by false pretenses.
An amended complaint has not yet been filed. It bears watching if Gramm-Leach-Bliley becomes a viable alternative avenue that the FTC relies upon following the loss of its most potent tool.
Square Capital Originated $392M in SMB Loans in Q1
May 6, 2021
Square Capital originated 78,000 small business loans in Q1 for a total of $392M. That figure does not include PPP lending, which comprised of 57,000 loans for a total of $531 million.
“After pausing flex loan offers from early March to late July of 2020, we have been measured in our ongoing ramp of offers to sellers,” Square said. “Revenue from Square Capital was down on a year-over-year basis due to a lower mix of flex loans during the quarter.”
Square Capital originated slightly under $1 billion in 2020, down from the $2.3 billion in 2019.
Noah Breslow Has Left OnDeck
May 6, 2021OnDeck CEO Noah Breslow announced that as of April 30th, he had left OnDeck. He wrote the following in a May 6th post on LinkedIn:
“It is hard to believe, after a nearly 14 year run, that last Friday was my final day as an OnDecker. Working to build OnDeck with our incredible team, our partners, our board members and investors, and of course, our small business customers was the greatest professional experience I’ve had, and I am eternally grateful for the efforts of everyone involved in the company over so many years. I am proud of everything we accomplished together – pioneering the online lending industry, delivering nearly $14 billion dollars to small businesses, building a trusted brand and phenomenal culture, and achieving numerous industry firsts along the way.
I am especially proud of the way our team and our leaders handled themselves last year under the pressure of COVID. We worked together to navigate a very challenging situation, and I’ll never forget the teamwork and collaboration under stress that allowed us to land the company safely and become part of Enova – a transaction that I firmly believe was the right thing to do for the company’s stakeholders.”
Though Breslow was not the founder of OnDeck, he was one of its earliest employees and he later steered the company as its chief executive up through and past the point of it going public on the NYSE. In 2020, OnDeck was acquired by Enova.
Breslow updated his LinkedIn profile to say that as of May, he is now an “Operator in Residence” for Bain Capital Ventures.
Bain Capital Ventures posted a lengthy welcome to Breslow on Medium immediately after.
“Noah joins BCV this week as an operating partner, and we couldn’t be more delighted,” wrote Matt Harris, partner at Bain Capital Ventures. “You can reach him at nbreslow@baincapital.com with your next amazing idea.”
Breslow followed it with another post on LinkedIn:
“So, what’s next? Well, those who know me know I am passionate about the craft of entrepreneurship, and I have served as an angel investor and informal advisor to many startups and founders over the years.
After the OnDeck acquisition closed, Matt Harris, a longtime close friend and early OnDeck investor, reached out to me to chat about what might be next. Matt is a special person, and a renowned fintech investor – in fact, Matt was responsible for getting me into OnDeck 14 years ago, and that worked out pretty well! So, when he floated the idea of joining him at Bain Capital Ventures to do this type of work more formally, I was all ears.
I knew I wanted to spend some time working with innovative startups and exploring some new technology areas before diving into my next big thing – after all, it might last another 14 years! So, I am thrilled to announce I am joining Bain Capital Ventures as an operating partner – working with our portfolio CEOs and helping the firm invest in fintech and tech companies across all stages. Excited for what’s next!”
