Announcements
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.
North Mill Reports 2021 as Best Year in Company’s History
January 10, 2022JANUARY 6, 2022, NORWALK, CT – North Mill Equipment Finance LLC (“NMEF”), a Monitor 100 commercial equipment lender headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, announced today that 2021 was the best year in the company’s six decades-long history. Organic originations reached an all-time high and delinquencies hit an all-time low.
“Although 2021 posed many challenges, it turned out to be an extraordinarily successful year as our key performance indicators skyrocketed across the board,” said David C. Lee, Chairman and CEO, North Mill. “In the last three years, North Mill has burgeoned into a premium lender that has established a proven track record of innovation, execution, and operational excellence. Most notably, the partnerships that we’ve forged with our referral partners has allowed us to attain a level of success never before realized at this company.”
According to Pier Snider, EVP, CFO, “NMEF’s annual volume for 2021 increased 69% over prior year to $309M. The number of submitted applications rose to more than 19k, representing a 13% increase over 2020 submissions. Demonstrating an improvement in both efficiency and quality, the company funded 3.6K of those deals, a 51% increase year-over-year. Weighted average FICO shot up 5 points to 718, the highest score in the company’s history, while average deal size rose by more than $9k per transaction to hit an all-time high of $87K.” The company’s average yield remained north of 14% even with the higher average credit quality borrowers.
While annual indicators exceeded expectations, quarterly and monthly figures were also record-breaking. The fourth quarter of 2021 was exceptionally noteworthy as it, too, exemplifies the progression in the organization’s efficiency. NMEF experienced a 95% increase in volume in the 4Q 2021 vs the same period in 2020 while processing the same number of applications during the two periods. Moreover, December saw yet another new record funding volume level of $36.3M, a year-over-year increase of 83% while weighted average FICO increased to 730.
North Mill opened three new regional offices in 2021. An office in Irvine, CA was opened to better service larger referral partners for the company’s discounting programs while an office in Vorhees, NJ was established to leverage NMEF’s expanding workforce on the east coast near the Philadelphia metropolitan area. NMEF’s acquisition of Aztec Financial in September added an office in Murray, UT.
About North Mill Equipment Finance
North Mill Equipment Finance, a Monitor 100 company, originates and services small to mid-ticket equipment leases and loans, ranging from $15,000 to $1,000,000 in value. A broker-centric private lender, the company handles A – C credit qualities and finances transactions for a wide variety of asset categories including construction, transportation, vocational, medical, manufacturing, printing, franchise, renovation, janitorial and material handling equipment. North Mill is majority owned by an affiliate of WAFRA Capital Partners, Inc. (WCP). The company’s headquarters is in Norwalk, CT, with regional offices in Irvine, CA, Dover, NH, Voorhees NJ, and Murray, UT. For more information, visit www.nmef.com.
DailyFunder Surpasses Two Million Page Views Again
January 10, 2022
DailyFunder, the small business finance forum founded in 2012, once again surpassed two million annual page views.
“This community draws in hundreds of thousands of visitors each year,” said DailyFunder founder Sean Murray. “We’re very impressed by its continued popularity ten years after it was founded.”
The forum is currently beta testing a new form of native advertising that was automatically extended to existing advertisers. The site continues to be one of the primary drivers of b2b finance traffic for the industry.
“There’s a reason that people keep coming back,” Murray added. “There’s really nothing else like the DF.”
Centrex Software Announces New Relationship Building Technology at Broker Fair 2021
December 22, 2021Costa Mesa, CA— Finance technology (FinTech) in the traditional and alternative business finance industry is seeing a massive enhancement with the release of new technology from Centrex Software.
Centrex Software, a dedicated business lending CRM and loan/advance servicing software platform that brings multiple technologies all under one roof for direct funders, brokers, and investors, experienced 22% growth from 2019 to 2020 and 35% growth from 2020 to 2021, during a global pandemic. With that growth has come quite a bit of new thinking out of the Centrex Software management team.
When it comes to the business lending space, FinTech companies spend huge amounts of time focused on how to drive more users into their software. This strategy makes sense as it is what a large operating software company is required to focus on to generate revenue. “But what about our customers’ customers? What if we spent more time focused on driving our customers’ customers not to our software, but to our customers’ software? In our business, we fail if our customers can’t engage, retain, and sell to their customers. We want that relationship to thrive and grow so we have built technology to aid that,” says Trey Markel, Senior Software Specialist with Centrex.
In realizing there was a tech need for this new way of thinking, Centrex Software built a mobile app that is white labeled to Centrex Software customers so they can offer more relationship retaining and building solutions to their customers. Keith Nason, President at Velocity Funding Group, and a Centrex Software customer, explains, “Trey, Michael and the Centrex team are going to put my brand in the pockets of every single one of my customers. It was an entirely new strategy that you simply don’t see from other software companies, and it should create customer engagement like we have never seen before.” The new white labeled mobile app has a few features that will really put your marketing hat on. First, the white labeled app is fully integrated with Plaid so that pre- and post-funding, Centrex clients can actually link their banks accounts and manage their finances. On top of that, Centrex Software has an admin portal where Centrex clients can manage all their app users. One of the best parts is that, in the admin portal, Centrex clients will have the ability to send push notifications to smart watches and to mobile devices that can communicate to the end mobile app user. Plus, there are several other features that keep mobile app users engaged with Centrex clients and the broker partner via the mobile app.
In the same spirit of engaging more efficiently with customers, the Centrex team also built a WordPress plugin that allows its customers to build “Smart Applications” right on their website. Michael Lindsey, also a Senior Software Specialist with Centrex expressed, “Our clients need more tools that are forward facing to their customers to help make faster decisions and offer a better more automated experience.” Taking the automated application process a bit further, Centrex integrated the WordPress plugin with Universal Credit Services to pull and analyze credit data, and Plaid to pull and analyze financial data. This allows Centrex Software customers to automatically underwrite and create offers right on their website. The WordPress plugin will communicate all info and decisions into Centrex Software during each step of the process. Lastly, for those Centrex Software customers using both the WordPress plugin and the white labeled mobile app, once an application is completed by the business borrower on a Centrex Software customers website, it will automatically create a user for the mobile app in real-time. The end result is a completely seamless and streamlined business borrowing experience.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the two new technologies being released by Centrex Software on January 1st of 2022, is that in order to take advantage of the new tech, you don’t even need to be a Centrex Software CRM customer. “We understand that the Centrex CRM is only one option for funders and ISO’s out there. We also understand that there is much more than just CRM that is needed to build a successful finance business. Because of that, we built the WordPress plugin and the mobile app in an API based architecture so that any finance company using any CRM with an API can utilize the new Centrex technology. We wanted to capture more of the market with unique FinTech solutions, offering CRM alone can only get us a to a certain point.” says Trey Markel.
Needless to say, Centrex Software has really stepped it up as a full circle FinTech solution provider to the finance industry. Centrex Software will also be launching its new open REST API and amortization calculators in the new year to expand their tech offering. You can reach Centrex Software at www.centrexsoftware.com or email media@centrexsoftware.com
Velocity Group USA Names Keith Nason President, Launching KapSource in Q1 2022
December 16, 2021
Melville, NY – December 16th, 2021 – Velocity Group USA is pleased to announce Keith Nason as the newly appointed President. In conjunction with stepping into the role as President, Nason will continue to hold his position as Chief Operating Officer, building on business development strategies and appointing new members of Velocity Group’s executive team.
“We have undergone many necessary changes over the past year, but the change we are most excited about is appointing Keith Nason as the President of Velocity Group. He has extensive industry experience, as well as the knowledge, innovation and vision to drive growth in 2022. I have no doubt these qualities will help set us apart from our competitors as we continue to expand our business,” said Lisa Gioia, Chief Executive Officer
Nason is an industry veteran with over eight years of experience within the Merchant Cash Advance market, specializing in both top and bottom-line growth, building infrastructure and security, data integrity, risk models, technology, and securing capital through multiple channels.
“Over the last 12 months, we’ve invested a tremendous amount of time, energy, and capital in our team, product, infrastructure and data security, as well as our process. Doing so has positioned us for significant growth in 2022 and beyond,” commented Nason.
He also credited his institutional investors as being a key to success by having faith in the long-term goals of the company, and confidence in the new team to prioritize long-term success over strictly short-term returns. Nason also stated, “It’s a true testament to the team that we were able to completely rebuild our business foundation while still funding over $100MM and producing record returns to our investors.”
With the revamp of the company infrastructure and data security, Velocity Group USA will be launching KapSource within the first quarter of 2022, a “business in a box” model that will allow other members of the industry to use its proprietary technology to increase conversions, alongside a marketplace in which brokers can fund their owns deals and create additional revenue streams through Velocity’s capital sources.
LAST CALL: Broker Fair Pre-Show Party
December 2, 2021
This is the last call to secure a spot for the Broker Fair pre-show party taking place on the evening of December 5th from 7-9pm at The Malt House FiDi. There are only a few tickets left to it.
Tickets to the full event the following day is already sold out. Pre-show tickets are still available here.
Are you looking for a chance to meet your fellow Broker Fair attendees in a smaller, more intimate environment?
Then join us for our Broker Fair Pre-Show at The Malt House FiDi! This is your chance to network with industry professionals before Broker Fair.
Final Reminder About Broker Fair and Vaccination
December 1, 2021This is a final reminder that Broker Fair is a vaccination-mandatory event (through no decision of our own), pursuant to NYC law. The venue will not accept a negative test. Only proof of vaccination is acceptable for entry.
If you have a Broker Fair ticket but are not vaccinated, please contact events@debanked.com immediately.
Broker Fair 2021 Registration Has Closed
November 30, 2021Broker Fair 2021 ended registration early this morning. The fifty three sponsors signed on represent the maximum that can fit inside the showcase room at Convene at Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan. We look forward to seeing everyone in the industry there in person!
The agenda can be viewed here.
You can already connect with other attendees using the mobile app. The email address connected to your ticket is your login.
