merchant loans
Deja vu? Merchant Cash Advance in Wall Street Journal
August 10, 2011
Have you ever had a deja vu moment where you feel like something has happened already even though it hasn’t? And then all of the sudden it happens? Yeah, we just got a little of that. Or maybe we’re just psychic.
It was just a couple months ago that we published a scathing editorial on the failure of the Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) industry to reach mainstream acceptance. (See: The Colossal Marketing Failure of the Merchant Cash Advance Product – June 28th, 2011). Most of our readers acknowledged the shortcomings but were at a loss for suggestions to overcome them. ISO&Agent Magazine quickly added their two cents by claiming that MCA was waiting for its big moment (See: Cash Advances: Negotiating a Maturing Market – July 26th, 2011) but completely missed the mark when they identified cost as the obstacle holding it back. It’s not cost, it’s communication.
How often is MCA cited in mainstream news publications? Wall Street Journal? New York Times?
-direct quote from our piece on June 28th
Today we can say that Merchant Cash Advance got its mention in the Wall Street Journal. :::Applause::: Though it’s only in their blog section, most people today get their news online anyway. The article features AdvanceMe, the largest and oldest player of the bunch. So how does the glorification of one company carry over to the industry as a whole? There were a bunch of good messages in there that describe the product itself: The article title implies it’s becoming more popular: “Cash-Advance Demand Rising” A description of how it works: “Merchant cash advances, which first appeared about a decade ago, provide capital in exchange for a share of future debit or credit-card sales. As such, they tend to be used by retailers, restaurants and other small businesses where a large number of customers pay with cards.”The common uses for it: “Business owners use the cash to buy new equipment, restock inventory or pay off debt” Yes, Yes, and Yes. Good for AdvanceMe and good for the MCA industry but this is only the beginning.
Every business owner should be aware of MCA, not just the ones that read the Journal today. It is Un-American (Yeah, that’s right) to withhold information from business owners that may enable them to capitalize on opportunities. With no bank loans available, most projects in this country are on hold. It’s simply not fair. We badly want to take the credit for today’s Journal mention, especially since we delivered our two previous articles on this topic to their editors in July. But the real hero here is AdvanceMe. Their press release the day before clearly caught the attention of the mainstream media. Great job guys. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out they forecasted an increase in funding by $1 billion in the next 2 years. That’s about equal to the industry’s entire volume combined. Is Merchant Cash Advance about to hit its growth spurt? AdvanceMe seems to think so. If they’re about to have their ‘moment‘, they’ll likely pull everyone else along with them.
– deBanked
https://debanked.com
Merchant Cash Advance Forums Goes Quiet
March 31, 2011
The Merchant Cash Advance Forums is an old discussion board for those working within or looking into the Merchant Cash Advance industry. On March 25th, 2011 the Forums implemented stricter account policies that now require members to submit detailed information about who they are and who they represent. This includes:
- Real name
- Company you work for
- Company’s address
- Your phone number
A public notice on the forums states “For the sake of adding value and integrity to the MCA Forums, an additional layer of moderation as well as basic data collection have been implemented. Members MUST now complete their private profile with their basic contact information. This required information is confidential, and other members will NOT be able to view it. Data collected is NEVER sold to third parties remains strictly confidential.”
And since this went into effect, the bustling discussion board has been for the most part a ghost town. While a few active participants proudly make their company affiliations known, most users hide behind a nickname for privacy. This certainly makes sense from a personal standpoint (the internet is dangerous!), but it also helps protect employers from liability should one of their employees openly discuss their opinions.
For example: John Doe states his affiliation with ABC Funding Co. upon registering with the site and posts “tHe iNdUsTrY iS dOoMeD!” Many of the other forum members may interpret that to mean ABC Funding Co. is in serious trouble or because of the way John Doe posts, that ABC Funding Co. does not employ very intelligent people.
Though there is an explicit promise of confidentiality, this industry has bred many stone cold skeptics over the years. If Facebook can get someone in trouble, anything can.
Of course, we may be wrong completely and the dull conversation could be a result of more time spent working, there being little to talk about, or an unwillingness to talk as the news of what is happening in California spreads.
This is by no means an attack on the MCA Forums. We used to check in on it pretty often. We recommend anyone in the MCA, payments, or banking industry to sign up to for DailyFunder.com now as of 2013. Just be careful. Anything you post on the internet can be linked back to you by someone, somehow.
