Business Lending
PayPal: Our merchants grow after taking a business loan from us
February 5, 2025PayPal is feeling optimistic about its business loan program now that it has been reset on a path toward growth. “As the business matures, PayPal Business Loan offers more traditional merchant financing to match the increasing complexity and multichannel nature of larger businesses,” said CEO Alex Chriss during the Q4 earnings call. “Our business financing solutions increase loyalty and engagement, driving the PayPal flywheel. Merchants typically increase their PayPal volume by 36% after adopting PayPal Working Capital and 16% after taking a PayPal Business Loan. Our merchant lending originations were $3 billion in ’24, demonstrating our leadership and that there’s plenty of room to grow to support our customers.”
PayPal offers this product in the US, Germany, France, the Netherlands, UK, and Australia.
“The PayPal Working Capital product allows businesses to access a loan or cash advance for a fixed fee, based on their annual payment volume processed by PayPal,” the company states. “The PayPal Business Loan product provides businesses with access to short-term financing for a fixed fee or interest based on an evaluation of the applying business as well as the business owner. In the U.S., these products are provided under a program agreement with an independent chartered financial institution.”
Between them, PayPal is one of the largest online business lenders in the US.
With Trump’s Freeze on New Regulations, What to Make of the New CFPB Rules?
January 23, 2025On January 20, Trump’s ceremonial display of taking action and signing orders on his very first day might warrant a closer look for those in the small business finance industry. That’s because he signed a regulatory freeze order that could potentially affect rules promulgated by the CFPB on small business loan data collection that have yet to go into effect.
Specifically Trump’s order not only puts a freeze on issuing new rules but also mandates rules be withdrawn if they’ve been sent to the Office of the Federal Register. And then lastly, and most relevant, it orders agency heads to “consider postponing” any rules that have been published or “any rules that have been issued in any manner but have not taken effect, for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise.” It asks for a 60-day review period overseen by an agency head appointed or designated by Trump to review and approve the rule.
“Should actions be identified that were undertaken before noon on January 20, 2025, that frustrate the purpose underlying this memorandum, I may modify or extend this memorandum, to require that department and agency heads consider taking steps to address those actions,” the order concludes.
BriteCap Financial Ramps Up Team, Ready For Growth
December 20, 2024The stream of announcements coming out of BriteCap Financial garnered notice. It started with news of a $150M credit facility back in August, followed by announcements of a new CEO, CFO, CCO, VPs, and more. The new CEO, Richard Henderson, whose CV includes previous roles at CAN Capital, Marlin Capital Solutions, and Direct Capital, told deBanked that the company wanted to have the right team in place to carefully grow the business. BriteCap, which is part of the North Mill family of companies, offers attractive term loans to small businesses.
As part of the plan, the company is looking to add not just new brokers but the right brokers, especially given the upstream programs they offer to merchants. “We’re being very selective on who we onboard,” said Henderson. “We’re trying to make sure that we’ll use that to get to scale, but also to build powerful relationships with those brokers where it’s a true partnership.”
BriteCap has developed an online checkout system to streamline the funding process. It can be configured to work with however the broker is used to working. They’ve focused a lot on the mobile experience so that a merchant need not even be in front of a computer to go through it.
One notable advantage to BriteCap is precisely that affiliation with the North Mill family because it opens up the possibility of not just working capital as a solution but also equipment finance. According to Henderson, the potential crossover between the products works well especially when the deals have been originated in the right context. That context includes the best practices and professionalism that equipment finance brokers typically operate within.
Among the C-suite executives to recently join BriteCap are Pushkar Choudhuri as Chief Financial Officer and David Lafferty as Chief Credit Officer. The timing of everything aligns with the firm’s economic sentiments. Henderson said that he believes optimism is higher now and growing.
“…generally speaking, we’ve seen demand picking up and we have a pretty bullish view on the economy moving forward,” he said. “I think we’re entering into a very good time in our space.”
SBA Names Members to its Small Business Lending Advisory Council
December 11, 2024The results are finally in. After a six-month review period, the SBA finally announced the applicants that have been approved to serve on its inaugural small business lending advisory council.
They are:
- Paul Brown, Managing Partner, Michigan eLab Investment Co.
- Sheryl Cameron, Executive Director SBA Solutions, JPMorgan Chase
- Kevin Carey, Interim President and CEO, American Hotel and Lodging Association
- Ellis Carr, President and CEO, CDC Small Business Finance
- Jill Castilla, President and CEO, Citizens Bank of Edmond
- Tammy deClercq, COO Head of Operations SBA, Lendistry SBLC
- Jeff Dick, Chairman and CEO, MainStreet Bank (VA)
- Nicole Dilts, VP of Commercial Solutions, Michigan State University Federal Credit Union
- Maggie Ference, SVP Small Business and SBA Director, Huntington National Bank
- Jeff Hansel, 1st VP, Rockland Trust Company
- Amy Hereford, President and CEO, LiftFund Inc.
- Ernest Hunter, CEO, Frenchy’s
- Duane Lewis, Interim Co-CEO, Black Business Investment Fund Inc.
- Deborah Partin, SVP of Lending, Rural Enterprises of Oklahoma, Inc.
- Amy Patel, EVP Head of Commercial Distribution, TD Bank
- Giovanna Piovanetti, Executive President, Corporacion para el Financiamiento Empresarial del Comercio y De Las Comunidades
- Lane Rhodes, VP Senior Loan Officer, Live Oak Bank
- Mark Robertson, President and CEO, PCR Small Business Development Corporation
- April Schneider, Head of Small and Business Banking, Wells Fargo
The published list is about six members short of the planned 25 so it is likely a few more will be added. To be eligible, applicants had to have “experience and technical expertise in such areas as commercial lending, small business finance, government-guaranteed lending, small business advocacy or advisement, and expertise needed to provide advice on SBA’s loan programs.”
LiftFund and Lendistry are arguably the only two from the fintech space.
Are You The Top Broker?!
November 21, 2024
Broker Battle returns on February 20, 2025 at deBanked CONNECT MIAMI. The competition, now the 2nd ever after last year’s very successful launch, is back with an improved format that allows for almost any qualified broker the opportunity to be tested LIVE in person. Broker Battle TWO will also have 3 separate broker categories versus last year’s catch-all. Those categories are Revenue Based Finance, SBA Lending, and Equipment Financing.

All competing brokers will be vetted, tested, and scored through very short judging rounds on the showcase floor. The two top scores from each category will actually compete on stage for the championship.
That means that as opposed to last year’s 6 total contestants and 7 separate battles on stage, this year’s competition could feasibly manage up to 100 contestants for which there will only be 3 total battles on stage (each being a championship). The format allows for more brokers to prove themselves in person while reducing total stage time for the final grand performance.
Each broker will win a cash prize and the distinction of being Top Broker (in their category). To be eligible for entry, you must be an active broker with good ethics and a positive reputation. You must also be registered to attend deBanked CONNECT MIAMI where it will take place and enter yourself in the battle itself here.
Broker Battle intends to foster best practices.

Cumulative Covid EIDL Chargeoffs Now Exceed $70 Billion
November 19, 2024The latest data from the SBA is in. It charged off $18.7B in Covid EIDL loans in FY 2024. That was down from $52B charged-off in FY 2023. The program still has an unpaid principal balance of $277B.
PPP loans were still being written off in FY 2024 as well, coming in $2.5B charged-off vs $10.6B charged-off in FY 2023 and $4.8B charged-off in FY 2022.
The EIDL program suffered astonishingly high losses during covid. Regular 7(a) loans, for example, only experienced $646M in charge-offs in FY 2024.
Shopify Capital Originates $837M in Business Loans & MCAs in Q3
November 15, 2024Shopify Capital originated $837 million in business loans and merchant cash advances in Q3, putting the grand total at $2.1B for the first 3 quarters. During the earnings call, Shopify said that loss ratios remained within the consistent range.
Compared to some of their competitors in the online space, Shopify Capital ranks third:
Q3 originations:
Square Loans: $1.38B
Enova: $1B
Shopify Capita: $837M
Ready Capital Grows as Leading Non-Bank Small Business Lender
November 10, 2024“Ready Capital has become a leading national non-bank lender to small businesses providing a full suite of loan options from $10,000 unsecured working capital loans to $25 million plus real estate-backed USDA loans,” said Ready Capital CEO Thomas Capasse during the company’s Q3 earnings call.
Ready, in some ways, has flown under the radar in recognition. On the one hand the company is the top non-bank SBA lender in the country and fourth overall SBA lender in the country. On the other hand, the company has previously acquired Knight Capital, iBusiness Funding, Madison One Capital, select non-SBA assets of Fountainhead, and Funding Circle USA. The result is that the overall organization is a powerhouse with a current public market cap of $1.25B.
iBusiness Funding, once the technology arm of Knight Capital, has played an integral role for the company. For example, when Ready acquired Funding Circle USA, it did it through the iBusiness Funding brand.
“[In 2019, iBusiness Funding was] a leader in unsecured small business lending,” Capasse said on the call. “And then they adopted their tech to the PPP which was very accretive. And since then there’s been the initiative within the SBA to emphasize small loans below $350,000, which many times are minority women-owned businesses, and so that’s been a significant initiative by the SBA& and so what we’ve done is iBusiness has developed a tech stack, which is now being marketed as a third-party underwriting model for banks. Banks just do not focus on that at all. Even if they do SBA loans, it’s mostly for larger loans again above the $350,000 to the $5 million. So the idea with iBusiness is to grow the revenue stream from this software-based business.”
On Funding Circle, Capasse said that the newly acquired subsidiary would be “accretive to earnings once fully ramped.” The numbers offered so far was that $6.6 million growth in Q3 origination income came from small business working capital loans through the Funding Circle platform.