Industry News
The SBA’s 2022 Women’s Business Summit is Fast Approaching
March 7, 2022
In honor of Women’s History Month, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) will host it’s 2022 Women’s Business Summit on March 28-30. It will include virtual panels, “Ask an Expert” workshops and fireside chats. In-person salon/listening sessions will be held by local and regional hosts. The goal is to help women-owned small businesses grow and thrive.
The event will be held by the SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership (OWBO) in co-sponsorship with the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center. Established in 1979 in response to an executive order, the Office of Women’s Business Ownership has encouraged women entrepreneurs to be active participants in the economy. It is specifically aimed at those who have been historically under-served or excluded.
Women have made great progress in growing businesses and jobs throughout the past few decades but challenges still remain. The SBA recognizes the significance of creating opportunities for women. In October of 2010 the SBA launched a summit series focused on women entrepreneurs that started with a kickoff event at the White House.
Isabella Casillas Guzman, Administrator of the SBA, will be presenting the Summit. Guzman previously served as Director of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate. In this role she served as the voice of small business and innovative startups in the 5th largest economy in the world. Guzman and her team connected entrepreneurs in every community with the necessary resources.
Natalie Madeira Cofield, Assistant Administrator of the Office of Women’s Business Ownership, SBA, will be speaking as well, along with a representative from the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center and other notable speakers and business leaders that have not yet been confirmed.
Previous speakers have included Rola E. Chami, Diane Winston, Sonia Alvelo, Kasey Corsello and others.
The 2022 Women’s Business Summit will present women entrepreneurs with the tools necessary to be successful within their businesses.
Broker Show Ends in a Cold Call Showdown For The Ages
March 3, 2022
The nearly 1-hour long season finale of Equipping The Dream aired on Thursday, concluding the first reality show to ever capture the business finance industry. The six-episode series which followed four aspiring equipment finance brokers, proved, if nothing else, that cold calling and phone sales are not dead.
The show’s contestants capped off their week of sales training with a calling competition that came down to the wire and an outcome that left viewers shocked. Josh Feinberg, one of the sales trainers in Equipping The Dream, explained it best. “It almost seemed like it was scripted, but it couldn’t have been more real.”
Two episodes were released each week starting on February 15th. The March 3rd airing of the finale means that eager viewers can now binge the entire show on deBanked TV without having to wait for future episodes. (Start With Episode 1 here)
The show captured a real life broker training at the office of Everlasting Capital in Rochester, New Hampshire. deBanked’s Sean Murray served as Executive Producer.
“I really had no idea what we were going to capture by having our camera crew there all week,” Murray said. “But what we got is something everyone doing sales in the industry should watch at least once. It came out that good.”
Reality Show About SMB Finance Sales Rockets to The Top Spot
February 20, 2022
Four aspiring equipment finance brokers traveled to Rochester, New Hampshire last November to get a hands-on sales training from the management team at Everlasting Capital. With a variety of backgrounds and dreams of turning commercial finance sales into a lucrative career, each trainee wasn’t sure what they were in for when a team of mentors and a film crew awaited them inside.
That’s the basis for Equipping The Dream, a deBanked TV produced web-based reality show that debuted on February 15th. The six-episode show is dropping twice a week until the finale scheduled for March 3rd.
Over the weekend, Episode 1 of the show became the most visited page on deBanked in 2022 so far.
“There’s never been anything like this about the industry,” said Executive Producer Sean Murray. “We did a screening of it for some people who had nothing to do with sales or finance and they were captivated by it.”
Partners Josh Feinberg and Will Murphy were already well-known throughout the industry. The two were featured in a 2018 deBanked story that explains how their journey began years earlier in a pawnshop basement. Since then, the pair now also run Equipment Broker School, a training course for aspiring brokers.
The sales tips and experience in the show, therefore, are as real as it gets. Viewers have shared what they thought of the first two episodes out so far:
“It was inspiring to see other people doing what I’m doing.”
“Awesome production!”
“This is getting good! COLD CALLERS watch this!!!!”
“This did not disappoint.”
“Your camera quality is better than most shows on Netflix.”
“I’m rooting for these brokers to succeed.”
“Now that’s reality!”
Episode 3 will be released on Tuesday, February 22nd. The four trainees range in ages 35-50. The show is exclusively on deBanked TV.
Enova and Nav Partner Up, Leveraging Data for Instant Funding
February 9, 2022
Intelligent financing platform Nav has announced an expanded partnership with small business lender Enova, bringing a mass amount of data to the X’s and O’s of small business financing approvals and funding processes of companies like OnDeck and Headway Capital, subsidiaries of Enova.
According to a joint press release, the move will create the first two-sided open marketplace in small business lending.
“Two-sided means we are bringing together both the demand and the supply,” said Greg Ott, CEO of Nav. [Nav] is the platform in the middle which allows small businesses to compare their options using the real data that the supplier, say lenders like Enova, use so that the small business owner can understand what they qualify for before they apply.”
As the head of a company that uses the value of data as a business model, Ott spoke about the harvesting of such data in ways that’s mutually benefits all parties.
“It’s all permissible, part of the desire for a lot of companies to get more data is you have to have a value proposition for small business owners to share their data,” said Ott. “Because Nav allows you to compare your options, we connect three commercial bureaus, we connect two personal bureaus, and then we connect the bank accounts so we can see the cash flow data. In certain cases, we may connect with merchant processing data, accounting data, and other data sets that the small business owners connect into our platform.”
While data will provide the merchant with options on different types of financing, the lenders also have a benefit in leveraging data provided by merchants to Nav from a marketing perspective. By having merchants input their own information, Enova and its subsidiaries like OnDeck and Headway Capital can offer those potential borrowers ‘instant funding’.
“I think [instant funding] is something that Enova has tried to do for a long time,” said Jim Granat, Head of Enova SMB. We’re trying to make things where the access to capital is as effortless as possible for the hard working Americans or business owners. We try really hard to take that approach in the way we design our product because in today’s world of ‘always online’ expectations for business owners, we want to provide the type of experience that allows them to have certainty, if it’s at all possible, as fast as they can.”
Granat stressed that effortless access to capital for merchants is the best way to differentiate one funder from another when trying to lend a small business money.
“An effortless experience allows [merchants] to know what they can do for their business as well [lenders] being able to capture the different business owners’ attention at the moment that they need it.”
Enova/OnDeck Originated $580M in Q4 Small Business Loans
February 7, 2022
Enova reported Q4 small business loan originations of $580M in its latest quarterly earnings report.
“As is evident by these numbers, our acquisition of OnDeck continues to pay dividends,” said Enova CEO David Fischer. “SMB Q4 originations were 26% higher than Q3 and 99% higher than a year ago, as it was enabled to effectively leverage the strong OnDeck brand and expertise.”
The company’s cost of funds has shrank from 8.3% in the 4th quarter of 2020 to 6.5% in the 4th quarter of 2021. This was made possible in part by adding a new two-year $150M revolving warehouse with JP Morgan.
Enova’s overall small business lending operation is complemented by a consumer arm. As of year-end 2021, small business lending represented 52% of the company’s portfolio while 48% was attributable to the consumer side.
“Within consumer, line of credit products represented 31%, installment products accounted for 67%, and short-term loans represented just 2%,” Fischer said.
Enova finished Q4 with a net income of $49M and full-year 2021 with a net income of $256M.
Register for The Webinar: Disclosures and Regulation From a General Counsel’s Perspective
February 3, 2022
Want to know what’s going on with the flood of disclosure bills and laws that are criss-crossing the nation? On February 10th, the Alternative Finance Bar Association will be hosting a webinar, titled Industry Superheroes: Disclosures and Regulation from a General Counsel’s Perspective.
According to the AFBA, “Some of the industry’s most talented General Counsel will discuss the practical challenges the Disclosure Laws present for Alternative Finance Companies.” Led by Jamie Polon, the webinar “will navigate these challenges and explore possible options for how to make strategic decisions that allow for sustainability and growth.”
deBanked happily recommends this event.
Funding Circle Partners With Nationwide in Mutual Referral Program
February 1, 2022
Denver-based small business lender Funding Circle announced a partnership with Nationwide Insurance, in a move designed to improve access to capital for businesses that use Nationwide as their insurance providers. The move is a continued trend in the small business financing industry to create access to resources surrounding business financing in places that merchants are interacting with on a daily basis.
“Funding Circle is thrilled to partner with Nationwide to offer essential resources that seamlessly supplement our customers’ business needs and set them up for success in a competitive market,” said Vipul Chhabra, Managing Director of Funding Circle US.
“This first-of-its-kind partnership with one of the country’s leading insurance and financial services providers embodies our core values,” said Chhabra. “[Our values are] to truly support American small business owners in accomplishing their goals, especially among underserved populations that banks typically are not incentivized to reach.”
On top of access to funding, the partnership offers access to resources surrounding small business financing to Nationwide customers. According to a press release by the companies, this is the first merger of a top insurance company with an online lending platform.
“Today’s hardworking business owners have a variety of insurance and financial needs. They are looking for innovative ways to have those needs met so they can focus on running their companies,” said Kasey Ketcham, Associate Vice President of Commercial Digital Enablement at Nationwide.
“This partnership with Funding Circle is another example of Nationwide’s commitment to addressing the challenges small business owners are facing,” said Ketcham. “[Nationwide is] offering expert guidance and comprehensive insurance and lending resources hand-in-hand to help them make informed decisions to fortify their business and livelihoods.”
According to Nationwide, the partnership will be a mutual referral program, where Funding Circle customers will be exposed to Nationwide products, and Nationwide customers will be exposed to Funding Circle products. Nationwide representatives explained the partnership exclusivley to deBanked.
“Exactly what is provided through Nationwide.com or the app is a link to Funding Circle,” said a Nationwide representative. “Once there, the user can complete an application for loan coverage, but are not granted special exception because they came from Nationwide.”
“They would still go through the loan application and underwriting for funds and vice versa,” said the representative. “The Funding Circle website/app is providing a link to Nationwide that the user can ‘learn more’ through the Coverage Assistant page, or “get a quote” using Nationwide Business Express.”
Shakeup at American Banker
January 27, 2022
American Banker, the longstanding publication for the banked, experienced a shakeup on Thursday.
It was announced that Editor-in-Chief Alan Kline and Executive Editor Bonnie McGeer had left the company. Kline had been with the company since 1997 and McGeer since 2007. Their departures came on the heels of another well-known name leaving just weeks earlier. Joe Adler, American Banker’s Washington Correspondent since 2006, announced that his last day had been January 7th.
Rob Blackwell, a former American Banker employee that had once served in Kline’s role, was among the first to comment on the news.
“This may be an upsetting day for some @AmerBanker reporters and editors out there,” he said on Twitter. “Just want to say to them that your work has been and continues to be top-notch. You may only see numbers on how many read your story; but I see how often they get passed around.”
American Banker’s new Editor-in-Chief will be Chana Schoenberger, formerly the Editor-in-Chief of Financial Planning. As part of that role, she will also take charge of the organization’s signature event, “The Most Powerful Women in Banking.”
The CEO of the company that owns American Banker, Gemma Postlethwaite, said that “Chana is the ideal choice to lead our flagship brand into the future. She will bring her diverse experience and astute insights to further our mission of advancing professionals in the banking community.”
“It’s an honor to work with such a talented group of journalists who are dedicated to covering the future of banking, financial services, and fintech at American Banker,” said Schoenberger. “I am also excited to tell the stories of the women who lead this dynamic industry as we move into the third decade of the Most Powerful Women in Banking.”
