Sean Murray: Welcome to the deBanked top 10 things of 2019.
What a year it was. Well, so much is happening in alternative
finance. These are the top 10 things that our readers followed
in 2019.
Number 10
The partnership between on deck and Chase Bank came to an end.
The loan underwriting arrangement, which ran for three
years was heralded as validation to online lenders everywhere.
Earlier this year, the deal ended with a whimper with OnDeck
offering little information as to why the deal ended, and
revealing that the deal had never generated that much money
to begin with.
Number nine
Knight Capital Funding was acquired for $27.8 million
dollars by a multi-strategy real estate finance company called
Ready Capital Corp. Ready Capital's CEO said on an
earnings call that they expect Knight to finish 2019 with $250
million worth of originations and do even more in 2020.
Number eight
Direct Lending Investments, once the leading online lending hedge
fund, imploded after the CEO stepped down from the company.
Direct Lending was sued by the Securities and Exchange
Commission. The regulator accused the company of engaging
in a multi year fraud that is alleged to have inflated the
fund's returns.
Number seven
It's a gold rush. In a story authored by deBanked. Sources
say the merchant cash advance industry is one of the top
growth industries of all time. And while everybody and their
mother seems to be getting into it, insiders agree you have to
be prepared to do it the right way.
Number six
While 1 Global Capital filed for bankruptcy in 2018, stakes went
up in 2019. Two individuals pled guilty to criminal securities
charges earlier this year, including an attorney. That
attorney's trouble stems from an opinion letter he provided to 1
Global that he knew to be false.
Number five
Canada eh? Canada was one of the most talked about regions in
online lending for 2019. In August, deBanked hosted its
first ever conference in Toronto, and brought together
more than 100 people from the small business finance industry.
Attendees: I've been coming to deBanked's events for a while,
they're always great, well put-on.,it's good way to meet
and interact with a lot of different people. The Canada
marketplace is in its infancy. Toronto is my hometown.
Canadians are really warming up to alternative lending. Canada
is number one.
Rafael: You know really nice having deBanked bringing so many
great people together to really help the Canadian market grow.
Sean Murray: Number four,
You're probably sick of hearing about them. But confessions of
judgment are one of the most talked about topics of 2019.
COJs as they're known, were greatly restricted in New York
after a news story on Bloomberg News, greatly sensationalized
how they could be used in commercial finance agreements.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has introduced
its own plan to restrict them at a national level. But until the
impeachment frenzy dies down, it's unlikely to go anywhere
anytime soon.
Number three.
deBanked events got red hot in 2019. Our most well known event,
broker fair, experienced a 70% increase in attendance over
2018. In 2020, we're expecting another 50% increase and as many
as 1000 attendees, as we hosted in lower Manhattan on May 18.
Brokerfair.org!
Attendees: There's no fluff here. Whether or not you're a
funder, you're a broker, you're a service provider, you're the
media, it's really wonderful to be here. The energy overall is
great compared to other events that I've been to.
Sean Murray: Number two,
Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the biggest online small
business lender of them all? It's PayPal. After soaring past
OnDeck in 2018, PayPal and other tech companies like Amazon,
Shopify and Square have stolen the spotlight in 2019. Expect to
read more about mainstream tech companies as they continue to
intersect with online lending in 2020.
And number one is... it's broker madness. The number one most
read story series of 2019 was about small business finance
brokers. While New York is the largest hub for brokers by far,
we've featured brokers as local as California to as far away as
Canada and Ireland. All of which means if you're a broker,
congratulations, you're what people thought most about in
2019.