Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.
Articles by Sean Murray
CFPB (and others) Not Amused By Quicken’s Push-Button Mortgage Ad
February 9, 2016Is Quicken in the right place at the wrong time?
Imagine a world where you could get a mortgage at the push of a button. And then imagine like literally pushing that button while you’re sitting in a dark auditorium watching a magic show. As the magician saws a woman in half, you agree to a $400,000 loan payable over 30 years. That pivotal moment, according to Quicken’s vision for American prosperity, will lead to a “tidal wave of ownership” that will flood the country with new home owners.
Consider the implications of that commercial on its own merits (or watch it below of course) and then imagine watching it after you’ve just seen The Big Short in theaters. Given that the movie is a true story about the build-up of the housing and credit bubble in the 2000s that led to a near catastrophic global collapse, a mortgage “tidal wave” might not be the best way to describe your new mobile app.
After Quicken’s push-button mortgage commercial aired during the Super Bowl, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau responded on twitter:
When it comes to #mortgages, take your time, ask questions and #knowbeforeyouowe. https://t.co/UUaGyWDbzk
— consumerfinance.gov (@CFPB) February 8, 2016
While the mortgage process shown on TV looked overly ambitious, a Quicken customer service rep who I chatted with while posing as a borrower, said that it really can be all done online, even if the mortgage was for like $600,000. When I inquired about what documents I’d need to provide through that process, I was told all I needed to do was state the address of the home.
A no-doc process?
According to the Wall Street Journal, “borrowers can authorize Quicken to access their bank and other financial information directly, eliminating the need for sending pay stubs, bank statements and tax returns back and forth.” So there’s still documents, they’re just electronic and retrieved via APIs.
Having scanned the process, there is clearly more than just one button to push (I counted 9 steps), but it may actually be possible to get a mortgage while watching a magic show. Apparently a lot of people on twitter don’t think that’s a good thing:
Thanks Rocket Mortgage for thinking the '08 housing crisis needed a sequel
— Wyatt Rasmussen (@Wyatt_Rasmussen) February 8, 2016
Let's start another financial collapse. #RocketMortgage https://t.co/7CkBTGJRPD
— Turney Duff (@turneyduff) February 8, 2016
My kid was playing with my phone and bought 7 houses. I can return those right? #RocketMortgage #SB50
— Tim Murphy (@TimMurphy104) February 8, 2016
Rocket Mortgage: explaining the 2008 financial crisis in one commercial
— Rahul Vedantam (@RahulVedantam) February 8, 2016
This commercial is making an excellent case for a massive real estate bubble. It worked awesome in 2007. #RocketMortgage
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 8, 2016
Meanwhile, Rana Foroohar, Assistant Managing Editor and Columnist for Time and Global Economic Analyst for CNN, argued that the backlash is unfounded. “No, the Rocket Mortgage Ad Is Not the Sign of Another Financial Apocalypse,” was the headline of her Time story published on Monday. Her evidence? Nobody can afford a mortgage anyway so there’s nothing to worry about, she basically says.
Private equity firm Blackstone has become the largest buyer of single family homes in the country over the last few years. […] Most ordinary Americans need mortgages to buy real estate; at current housing prices and incomes, it would take a typical family more than twenty years to save even a 10% down payment for a home plus closing costs. But they can’t get the loans, because in our post-crisis world, banks are still keeping credit tighter than usual. Besides, many individuals simply don’t have the secure employment, nest egg, and increasingly high credit scores needed to obtain a mortgage these days.
– Rana Foroohar
http://time.com/4212259/rocket-mortgage-super-bowl-ad/
See? There can’t be a bubble brewing because nobody can possibly qualify.
So when Quicken makes wildly provocative sales pitches like this:
Push Button. Get Mortgage. https://t.co/UzOXYFF25C#RocketMortgage 🚀🚀🚀
— Quicken Loans (@QuickenLoans) February 8, 2016
What they’re really apparently trying to say is that the process for those that qualify is supposedly more transparent and therefore better for borrowers:
.@CFPB We agree. No better way than #RocketMortgage for full transparency into mortgage options & info needed to make the right decision.
— Quicken Loans (@QuickenLoans) February 8, 2016
Of course, it probably doesn’t help when their legal help page is titled “legal mumbo jumbo.”
Quicken CEO Bill Emerson tried to clarify the message of the commercial to the WSJ. “What we’re saying is that a strong housing market filled with responsible homeowners is important to the economy,” he said.
Don’t worry about the mumbo jumbo folks, just push button, get mortgage.
—
What do you think? Is Quicken walking down a slippery slope?
Former Bizfi Manager is Making a Splash in Delaware State Senate Contest
February 7, 2016
A former Bizfi manager is underwriting a new kind of 4-year deal. Thirty-two year old James Spadola, who lives in Wilmington, is bringing an impressive resumé to the Delaware state Senate contest for District 1.
The world knows him as #HugACop after an outreach campaign he spearheaded for the Newark, Delaware police department went viral and inspired a new era of positive policing. Spadola has served as an officer there for more than 7 years.
He attended the University of Delaware, an experience that was interrupted when he was called up by the U.S. Army Reserve to take a tour of duty. Deployed in March 2003 for a year, he served as a prison guard and as his battalion commander’s gunner and driver in Iraq. He received the Combat Action Badge when his convoy was hit with an IED.
After returning home and graduating, Spadola moved to New York City and got a job at a hot new fintech startup named Merchant Cash and Capital (MCC). That was in February 2007, making him one of the company’s first ten employees. MCC Changed their name to Bizfi in September of 2015.
As an underwriter, Spadola was tasked with evaluating working capital applications submitted by small businesses. He was quickly promoted to Team Leader and later to Underwriting Manager, a senior departmental position.
Spadola told deBanked of his time there, “I had a great experience at Bizfi and learned an enormous amount about the private sector and the troubles and challenges that small business owners deal with everyday.”
Bizfi General Manager Seth Broman, said of him, “having worked closely with James for several years, it was apparent to me and all those around him that James has a knack for helping those in need.”
After almost two years there, he moved to Delaware to join the Newark Police Department, where he’s been ever since. He still managed to find the time to get his MBA from Wilmington University in 2014.
Today, Spadola is underwriting a new kind of challenge, competing against incumbent state legislator Harris McDowell who has been in office since 1976. Running as a Republican in a blue state, Spadola thinks it’s time for new blood.
“I look forward to putting those business lessons, coupled with what I’ve learned through my other professional experiences, into practical application down at Legislative Hall,” he told deBanked.
Visit his campaign Facebook page.
E-mail james@jamesspadola.com for further information.
How the FDIC Defines Marketplace Lending
February 5, 2016Marketplace lending is one of this year’s hottest buzzwords but its meaning is not very intuitive. According to a recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) report, “marketplace lending is broadly defined to include any practice of pairing borrowers and lenders through the use of an online platform without a traditional bank intermediary.” This might sound similar to peer-to-peer lending and that’s because it’s the same thing, the FDIC explains. “Although the model, originally started as a ‘peer-to-peer’ concept for individuals to lend to one another, the market has evolved as more institutional investors have become interested in funding the activity. As such, the term ‘peer-to-peer lending’ has become less descriptive of the business model and current references to the activity generally use the term ‘marketplace lending.'”
Voilà, marketplace lending is what you get when peers are replaced by private equity firms, pension funds, and hedge funds. Additionally, there is a general assumption that the intermediary platform is also underwriting and grading the loans.
The FDIC separates marketplace lenders into two categories, the “direct funding model” and “bank partnership model,” both of which are illustrated below:
In both circumstances, investors are actually buying securities, rather than participating in the loans themselves.
The FDIC says that marketplace lending can encompass unsecured consumer loans, debt consolidation loans, auto loans, purchase financing, education financing, real estate loans, merchant cash advance, medical patient financing, and small business loans.
For even more information, read the official report.
The Ghost of Second Source Funding Has Lost a Desperate Court Battle
February 4, 2016The notorious company returned from the dead for one last final stand
For many veterans of the merchant cash advance business, the Second Source Funding name is something they’d rather forget. They were perhaps the largest funding ISO in the industry between 2006 and 2008. And as plenty of ex-employees will tell you, the story ends badly.
Meir Hurwitz, a co-founder of NY based Pearl Capital, immortalized the Second Source years through a Bloomberg exposé about how his own company rose and sold for $40 million. In his tale, he claimed that Second Source founder Sam Chanin still owed him $2 million for the work he performed there. For Hurwitz, the falling out set the stage for the company he would go on to start. For other employees, it was the beginning of a grudge that would stick around for almost a decade.
Chanin has gone so far as to admit on his blog that he became known as “the guy who ripped them off and didn’t pay their residuals.” According to him, it wasn’t his fault. Court records do show Second Source Funding filing a complaint against Cynergy Data back in 2009 for $60 million in damages. Cynergy was the processor behind their lucrative merchant services operation and ultimately where the residuals they paid out to sales agents originated from. The case was dismissed in October of that year because Cynergy declared bankruptcy.
Effectively shuttered by the circumstances, the only reminder of what had once been, was another lawsuit filed by Second Source in September 2012 against a company (and more than 30 co-defendants) that acquired Cynergy Data’s assets. In October of 2009, Cynergy’s assets were reportedly sold to The Comvest Group for $81 million. In the complaint, Second Source sought at least $50 million from them in damages.
It has been approximately seven years since Second Source’s days ended, sources estimate. Users on industry forums were already speaking of the company in the past tense as far back as early 2009. The Second Source website no longer even exists. While ex-employees have long urged old peers to move on from those days, others have been forced to confront their demons.
THE GHOST OF MERCHANT CASH ADVANCE PAST
In September of 2014, the very same Second Source Funding emerged through a complaint filed in the Supreme Court of New York against Yellowstone Capital, LLC, 8 named co-defendants and 25 John Doe defendants. Seeking damages in the astounding amount of $360 million, Second Source alleged that Yellowstone’s co-founders stole their “revolutionary business model” of which they describe as using “Independent Sales Offices to leverage economies of scale in marketing and selling a bundle of financial services, including credit card processing and cash advances.” As a result of that and other claims, they were allegedly the reason for “Plaintiff SSF going out of business.”
The ensuing battle was probably one of the most contentious litigations the industry has ever experienced, at least from what can be seen on the docket. In one publicly filed exhibit introduced by Yellowstone, was the draft of a complaint that the plaintiffs had allegedly sent them that named more than 40 defendants. It reads like a yearbook of the merchant cash advance industry in 2009.
Other exhibits are packed with plenty of Second Source era nostalgia, including copies of the entrance exams given to new hires. One test question embodies the culture of the time, when it asked applicants:
What movie is this quote from, “Put the coffee down, coffee is for closers?”
While motions and cross motions at times appear to venture into the arena of insanity, especially considering Second Source went out of business a long time ago, deBanked has learned that Yellowstone was vindicated this week in a decision that dismissed all the claims with prejudice. That means they can’t have a do-over. The suit lasted 17 months.
deBanked has been quietly following the docket for over a year. We did not ask either party to comment on the decision for the reason being that Second Source may be considering an appeal, or at least they alluded to that in the court transcripts.
In the meantime, the ghost of Second Source reminded a few people in the merchant cash advance industry that the antics of 2006-2008 were more than just tall tales told by grey beard Wall Street guys. Back then the coffee was still for closers only. And back then, the game was so different that some people would still be feeling the effects of it a decade later.
THEN AND NOW
Yellowstone Capital was one of the first merchant cash advance companies to experiment with the ACH payment method. Today, they originate nearly a half billion dollars a year in funded deals.
If you want to see just how much has changed since the Second Source days, check out this answer to the Second Source exam in 2008.
Q: If a merchant is getting an advance from MCA and can’t switch processors, what can the agent offer this merchant?
A: Lock box
It’s amazing to think that ACH was inconceivable at the time. Touched by ghosts indeed…
Ponzi Scheme Threat Hangs Over Marketplace Lending
February 3, 2016
What if all the notes you bought on a peer-to-peer or marketplace lending platform were tied to loans that didn’t exist?
Such a scenario has not only happened but is a recurring theme over in China. The recent $7.6 billion fraud that was allegedly perpetrated by the management of Ezubao (a Chinese-based P2P lender) affected more investors than Bernie Madoff. Approximately 900,000 investors were impacted, according to CNBC.
But it gets worse, way worse. If you can believe this, the bosses of 266 other Chinese peer-to-peer lenders have fled and are in hiding. And that’s just in the last six months. Ratings agency Moody’s has said that 800 platforms have already failed or were recently facing liquidity issues.
In the case of Ezubao, there’s little doubt about what happened. Company executive Zhang Min told Xinhua news agency, “Ezubao is a Ponzi scheme.”
Lend Academy’s Peter Renton, who has witnessed the peer-to-peer lending industry in China firsthand wrote in his blog today that it’s too easy to start a platform there. “You need just US$1,000 to create a smartphone app, then obtain a very inexpensive business telephone license and you can be up and running,” he wrote.
Unsurprisingly, another Chinese peer-to-peer lender that just recently joined the New York Stock exchange, Yirendai (NYSE: YRD), was collateral damage to the Ezubao bombshell. Shares of the company dropped nearly 21% Tuesday to $4.88, down more than 50% from their IPO price.
Does the threat exist in the US?
Here at home, industry insiders are hardly worrying about China. “Could this level of fraud happen in the US?” Renton asked in his blog. “I think it is highly unlikely. There is a well-developed ecosystem in the US for both consumer and small business credit and appropriate lending licenses need to be obtained in most states before a company can begin operations.”
Renton is partially right. Most of the well-known platforms in the US are operating under watchful eyes. But there is a surging over-the-counter (OTC) marketplace that most outside investors don’t even know exists. Enter the syndication market where commercial finance brokers and investors can co-invest in loans or merchant cash advances through private marketplaces that may or may not have a website. With alluring yields of up to 100% a year or even more, it’s the perfect environment to pull off a scam if one maliciously intended to do so. [note: most are not scams at all]
The OTC market for these investments rely almost entirely on trust. There is little to no transparency into how investor funds are actually used. deBanked has received tips over the last twelve months that some companies have co-mingled investor funds with operational cash flow, with the result sometimes being a total loss of investment. Several lawsuits have been filed against these alleged fraudsters, deBanked has discovered, but none compare to the scope of damages taking place in China.
The last major Ponzi scheme to grip the commercial side of the industry for instance, involved Agape Merchant Advance (AMA), a Long Island based company that was part of a wider fraud conducted by sister company Agape World Inc. According to the 2012 complaint, “the defendants actually ran a Ponzi scheme, paying returns to Agape and AMA investors not from any profits earned on investments, but rather from existing investors’ deposits or money paid by new investors.”
In a report published by the FBI that explained how it worked, they wrote, “the defendants received an e-mail from Agape’s loan underwriter informing them that the interest rate that a bridge loan borrower had agreed to pay Agape was only 16 percent for one year, at the same time the defendants had promised to pay their investors 12 percent for 60 days for this investment, or 73 percent for the year. The defendants raised approximately $32.5 million for this bridge loan, although the loan was never made.”
The fraud, carried out mainly by its chief executive Nicholas Cosmo, was captivating enough to earn it a spot on CNBC’s American Greed series.
At the time Agape was operating, such yields should’ve raised an immediate red flag for investors, at least that’s the moral the TV show tried to communicate to viewers. In the real world today, those yields could be considered too low since actual commercial bridge financing transactions can pay out up to 40% over 90 days. And therein lies the danger. When legitimate deals are transacting for incredible premiums, how do you resist considering an investment?
It’s easy to chalk up China’s peer-to-peer lending fraud woes to China being China. But the pervasiveness and ease with which such scams have been carried out should send a strong message to marketplaces in the US.
Do you trust where your money is going? Are they using it exactly how they said they will?
Next on American Greed…
JP Morgan Deal With Santander Shows Nothing To Fear From Lending Club Loans
February 2, 2016
After Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. [NYSE: SC] announced they were trying (almost desperately it seemed) to shed $1 billion worth of Lending Club [NYSE: LC] loans from their balance sheet, investors weren’t sure if was the loans themselves that were a problem or if there was something else going on.
Santander CEO Jason Kulas said back in October that, “although the personal lending portfolio is performing well, we no longer intend to hold these assets for investment.” The rationale was that they would refocus their efforts on subprime auto lending. The market didn’t take the news well and rewarded Santander by gutting the share price from $22.10 on October 28th down to $10.10 by February 1st.
In a report put out last week by Chris Donat, a company analyst at Sandler O’Neill & Partners, it was intimated that the Lending Club loans Santander was still holding may have contributed to the fourth-quarter loss of $232 million that they reported last week on its unsecured personal loan portfolio. “In light of the damage that the personal loan portfolio inflicted on Santander’s income statement in 4Q15, we will be relieved when Santander is out of this business,” Donat wrote.
But fears of possible toxic Lending Club loans subsided on Monday when the WSJ announced that JP Morgan Chase was acquiring Santander’s portfolio and at a “premium.” The average FICO score of those loans is reportedly around 700. “The sale was being closely watched by credit markets as an indicator of the health of the market for online personal loans,” the WSJ said.
Lending Club’s share price closed up 3.12% on the news, but is still stuck near its all time low.
Bet On the Iowa Caucus and Political Primaries With Bitcoins
January 31, 2016
I’m often asked if bitcoin still has a future or if it’s dead. As someone who has mined bitcoins, made purchases with them, sold advertising space with them, traded them, and contributed to political campaigns with them, I feel pretty confident that bitcoins are here to stay. While the system isn’t as anonymous as some people believe, bitcoin fills a void that many people the world over have long sought, a way to move money outside the banking system, and all without a replacement form of centralized control. It is the only way to truly de-bank.
The value is volatile but there are several markets where such volatility is the cost of doing business. Would you rather your bitcoins be worth 5% less when you receive them as payment or would you rather get nothing of what you are owed because the traditional banking system is preventing the transaction?
Enter one black market, betting on US elections, a practice that is largely illegal. And if people could bet on it they would, according to odds maker Jimmy Vaccaro at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas. He told CNN that opening up betting on elections would be the biggest thing they’d ever booked. “It would make the Super Bowl look like a high school football game,” he reportedly said.
But you can still bet on elections if you really want to, according to Market Watch’s Brett Arends. In the name of journalism, Arends successfully bet $1 on the Iowa Caucus… using bitcoins. He bet on Rand Paul with 40 to 1 odds. If he wins, he’ll collect those winnings in bitcoins.
And nobody can stop him.
As an independent system controlled by nobody, there are no bank accounts to freeze, ACH processors to shut down or physical dollars to confiscate. And despite the critics that claim bitcoins have to be converted to a “real” currency at some point in order to realize the value, that’s not necessarily true. You can live your life on bitcoin.
For one bookmaker (and you should view it as a reference only), the odds of a Ted Cruz win in the Iowa caucus is 2.6 to 1. Marco Rubio is paying 10.5 to 1. On the Democrat side, Bernie Sanders is paying 2.92 to 1.
Market Watch’s Arends argues that such activity might not be gambling at all since the IRS ruled bitcoin to be property, not a currency. In his simplistic view, they might as well be digital jelly beans. “When I wagered $1 worth of bitcoins on Sen. Paul last week, in the eyes of the law I wasn’t actually betting real money. I was just betting jelly beans,” he wrote.
You can of course buy cool stuff with those jelly beans.
It’s quite gray indeed, but if the interest in political gambling truly dwarfs the Super Bowl, then a totally bank-less decentralized system opens up all kinds of doors, the kind that don’t want to be closed.
In non-bank finance, a topic I often write about, all roads inevitably lead back to banks, no matter how much the system is disrupted. The truly de-banked use bitcoins and with that, the possibilities with it are endless.
Would you bet on Bernie Sanders with 2.92 to 1 odds? You’re not supposed to be able to do it, but in a bankless world, you could.
SoFi to Air Super Bowl Commercial (Watch it here!)
January 29, 2016“great loans for great people,” the narrator says after zooming in on several young urban professionals. Humorously, the TV commercial, which will air during the Super Bowl, labels some people as “not great” and therefore ineligible to join a rather exclusive club of people who can get great loans. Watch the video below:
NOTE: SoFi has modified their ad to be less controversial by removing the last spoken line from it. The “you’re probably not [great]” ending apparently received some PR backlash. The updated ad is below:
Credit card companies use a similar technique of appealing to consumers by bestowing them with some kind of status. With labels such as Diamond Preferred, Platinum, Platinum Advantage, Platinum Prestige, Gold, Premium and World Elite, it’s an attempt to make the borrower feel like they are part of an important club.
SoFi however, may be the first to showcase borrowers who are just not good enough to be in their club, with the obvious intent that the commercial will be something to talk about. People are probably more likely to share something that is controversial than something that is plain vanilla. With 30 second slots going for $4.5 million this year, SoFi probably can’t afford to go unnoticed.
As part of a promotional campaign, SoFi has been selling their vision of a bankless world through a dystopian online video:
SoFi CEO Mike Cagney has consistently cast himself as the anti-banker, and once joked that his whereabouts are monitored by friends at all times to limit the opportunities for bankers to kidnap him.
What do you think about the SoFi commercial. Is it great?
