Making it Work: CanaCap and the Case for Canada
July 5, 2019
What leads an alternative financer to establish their own business in Canada? For Evan Marmott and his partner Adam Benaroch, it was the level of opportunity that the country offered in comparison to United States, where the alternative funding industry had become bloated and saturated with funders and brokers alike by 2017, when the pair established CanaCap.
Holding over 30 years of experience in alternative finance between them, Marmott and Benaroch founded CanaCap with the intention of capitalizing off interested Canadian merchants that were much more receptive to the message of brokers and funders. Not being bombarded by constant emails and advertisements for quick loans, Marmott says, leads Canadian business owners to be more open-minded to discussing alternative funding with brokers, resulting in both a better understanding of the conditions of the financing as well as more time on the phone to make deals. And on top of this, the lack of a dominant player within the alternative funding world of Canada leads to a divided market share, allowing small and large firms alike to succeed.
Accompanying this advantage of time and space within the market is the quality of merchants found in Canada. Claiming that Canadian merchants generally perform better than American business owners when repaying debts, Marmott explains that funders operating north of the border can expect to have a “cleaner” portfolio.
And lastly, the level of product knowledge amongst potential customers appeared to be just right to Marmott and Benaroch. With the former noting how CanaCap is unique in its willingness to offer second positions to Canadian businesses, Marmott highlights how his company benefits from larger financers, such as OnDeck, who many of their customers would go to first, learn about the funding process, be denied funds, and then be picked up by CanaCap after further researching the industry.
With offices in both Montreal and New York, the latter of these being for CapCall, the American counterpart to CanaCap, Marmott is well-attuned to the differences between the two markets. And while he concedes that the downside of brokering in the Great White North is the 30% that is clipped from commissions due to currency exchange, he affirms that the savings from reduced marketing costs, providing better return on investment rates, offset this loss.
Altogether, the CEO makes a convincing case for why one should consider alternative financing in Canada. Taking the tack that the country provides a fresh slate of sorts to financers, where merchants have yet to be inundated with offers, promotions, and horror stories about the industry, Marmott and Benaroch have enjoyed success with their model of approving over 90% of their applicants and streamlining the application process as to increase turnaround times.
With plans to stay put for the foreseeable future, Marmott says that he’s “looking forward to funding small businesses” as his company continues to service the entire country and the alternative finance industry in Canada develops. A plan that doesn’t sound too bad, especially with signs pointing towards increased growth and further interest from merchants.
2M7 Financial Solutions and the State of Alternative Funding in Canada
July 1, 2019
“What’s a cash advance?”
This is how Avi Bernstein, CEO of 2M7 Financial Solutions, recalled a typical conversation in 2008, when his company was founded in the Canadian market. According to him, customer knowledge of alternative financing methods was dismal, partly due to a handful of homogenous banks dominating the scene as well as a void of funders in the country.
Flash forward to 2019 and 2M7 is operating within a Canadian market that is much more trusting and knowledgeable of merchant cash advances, although it is not yet at the levels witnessed in the U.S.
“Low hanging fruit,” is how Bernstein describes the industry now, as small and medium-sized businesses are flocking to 2M7 and its contemporaries, which offer higher approval ratings and faster confirmation of funding than their more traditional counterparts. In fact, according to a 2018 study conducted by Smarter Loans, 24% of those Canadians surveyed stated that they sought their first loan with an alternative lender that year. As well as this, only 29% reported that they pursued funding from more established, traditional financial institutions and 85% of those that received financing confirmed their satisfaction.
Figures like these help to explain why the Canadian market has seen a rise in interest from foreign businesses in the previous five years. Greenbox Capital, First Down Funding, and Funding Circle are examples of those companies who have successfully implanted themselves within the market, a feat that Bernstein claims isn’t easy.
“It’s a different business,” he notes when comparing the market to that of the U.S. Listing the dissimilarities in market maturity levels, sales tactics, processing channels, and collection styles, as well as the currency exchange rate that’s to be considered, Bernstein says that he’s found those American funders who come to Canada unprepared never stay long enough to become a fixture of the industry.
Warning against half measures, Bernstein explains that “You’ve gotta put boots on the ground” if you want to succeed in Canada. Giving the impression that unless you’re willing to learn the rules applied in the market, hire people, and house them in an office north of the American border, Bernstein is keen to highlight what’s required of foreign companies looking with interest at Canada.
But it’s a risk-reward situation. The market is opening up as more funders enter it, and with the arrival of larger companies, such as OnDeck Capital, more resources are being devoted to raising awareness of alternative financing amongst Canadians.
Meanwhile, homogenous firms like 2M7 are continuing to grow in this developing market. Receiving an average of 200-300 applications for funds per month, 2M7 is capitalizing off opportunities by proving themselves to be open to a wider range of applications. Bernstein asserts that “we try to fund everything,” and that they keep an “open mind to every opportunity” that lands on their desk. Perhaps this is a mindset not shared by more conservative of funders in the industry, but, as Bernstein says, “we’re here, we’re funding, and we’re ready to rock n’ roll.”
You can meet Avi Bernstein and 2M7 at deBanked CONNECT Toronto on July 25th.
“You Can’t Stay Static”: Paul Teitelman and the Building of an SEO Firm
June 30, 2019
How does someone become an SEO expert? How does someone found a successful SEO consultancy firm? For Paul Teitelman, his road to SEO mastery and independence started by admitting he knew nothing about the industry.
Beginning in the late noughties, following his graduation in Marketing Management from Dalhousie University, Teitelman went to an Interactive Advertising Bureau job fair, pitched himself to his soon-to-be boss, and replied, “No! But I’m your man. I’ll learn it all,” when asked if he knew anything about SEO.
Thus began his tenure at Search Engine People, one of Canada’s first Search Engine Marketing companies. Here he entered as a Link Ninja and learned the trade by implementing SEO campaigns for both Fortune 100 and 500 companies as well as for local businesses. From this, he advanced to a managerial position, in which he led teams of SEO specialists who were responsible for ensuring clients would appear at the top of Google search pages. And then, in 2011, Teitelman left Search Engine People to make his own way, becoming the CEO and founder of his self-titled, Toronto-based SEO consultancy firm.
How did the move to independence pan out? Well, as of June 2019 he has hired his 25th employee, his team is kept busy servicing the needs of clients, and he experiments with pioneering SEO strategies and theories within his own blog network. Claiming that his firm offers “the best of both worlds” as a result of him having worked on both ends of the SEO spectrum, Teitelman explains that clients benefit from his offering of the transparency, promptness, and directness that are inherent with small firms; and that he reaps the reward of an agency price tag, a perk that comes with producing consistently successful SEO work.
When asked about how others could follow in his footsteps, he said, regardless of the industry, whether you’re an SEO expert or broker, that “you can’t stay static.” Emphasizing the necessity of having foresight when you leave your old job, Teitelman notes that entrepreneurs need to stay ahead of the curve of trends, be that an update to Google’s search result algorithm or a niche opening in the alternative finance market. As well as this, Teitelman highlighted the importance of being secure in that knowledge that when you leave to make it independently you will have a list of clients to take with you, who’ll keep you from leaving yourself high and dry.
And much like how the merchant cash advance scene in Canada has seen an increase in both interest and product knowledge amongst customers over recent years, as has SEO. Subject to myth-making and conjecture as a result of its technical lingo and specialized nature, SEO has long been the victim of misunderstanding according to Teitelman, who says those who are curious about the service “shouldn’t believe everything they read on the internet.”
Going on to say that “the more education customers get, the more exciting the industry becomes,” it’s clear that Teitelman is looking forward to the future of SEO. Time will tell if his offer back in 2008 will be matched by interested industries, curious about the possibilities that SEO promises and willing to “learn it all.”
Paul Teitelman is also speaking on a sales and marketing strategies panel at deBanked CONNECT Toronto on July 25th alongside Smarter Loans President Vlad Sherbatov and SharpShooter Funding Managing Partner Paul Pitcher.
“Do It Better Than How You Learned It”: How Paul Pitcher Came To Be In Canada
June 27, 2019
Few kids who dream of running their own international business actually grow up to live that fantasy. Even fewer end up working alongside their childhood heroes. Paul Pitcher is doing both, and he’s loving every minute of it.
Growing up in Annapolis, Maryland, the Managing Partner at First Down Funding and SharpShooter Funding studied at Severn School and immersed himself in sport. Under the eye of his father, Pitcher began playing basketball and baseball at the age of 4. Golf came later, and it followed him into his young adult life as he played at a collegiate level while enrolled at the University of Tampa, where he studied International Marketing and Finance. And upon graduation, Pitcher landed a job in Washington D.C., working in sales for the Washington Wizards and Capitals.
Sports accompanied him in each phase of his life, so it comes as no surprise that it is entwined with his current business ventures.
After leaving the Regional Sales Manager position he held with the Wizards and Capitals, Pitcher became a broker, eventually establishing First Down in 2012 – seeing it as a solution to a problem many business owners across the country face: acquiring capital. Offering funds via merchant cash advances, First Down provides financial aid to small and medium-sized businesses.
And after enjoying success in the United States, lightning struck on June 6th, 2015. Out of the blue, over 25 Canadian business owners applied for funding from First Down. Chalking it up to ads First Down had placed across social media, Pitcher decided to dive into the new, northern market, but only after consulting with the only Canadian he knew, WWE Hall of Famer Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart.
Having met the wrestler in 1993, Pitcher gambled on Hart remembering the 10-years-old kid in the Looney Toons t-shirt that he took a photo with two decades ago. And it paid off. Following discussions of what First Down did and how it met the needs of the Canadian market, Hart partnered with the company and now serves as commissioner to SharpShooter, the Canadian arm of First Down.
With the backing of a hero from his youth behind him, Pitcher expanded beyond the borders of the US, and with this came further support from sports stars. Recent years have seen CJ Mosley of the New York Jets, Jacoby Jones of the Baltimore Ravens, and the Shogun Welterweight Champion Micah Terill partnering with Pitcher.
Noting that the spirit and culture of sport has definitely bled into First Down and SharpShooter from both his own personal life as well as the lives of those athletes that are partnered to it, Pitcher affirms that healthy competition is integral to both sport and business.
Believing that it’s just as important to win as it is to develop the environment you are in, Pitcher is in the funding market for the long-run. And it is exactly this that attracts him to Canada. Comparing it to Baltimore in his home state, he sees the Great White North as a region that is less saturated with funding firms like you would find in New York or Chicago, in other words, he sees it as a place of opportunity, where there is room to grow.
Of course, with such opportunity there are growing pains, like the populace’s level of product knowledge as well as the building of trust between business owners and SharpShooter, but Pitcher welcomes it. Emphasizing his love for competition, he calls for more firms like his to enter the market, be they big or small, as according to him, it could only help build upon the culture of non-bank funding that has taken root in Canada.
“Whatever you do, do it better than how you learned it,” are among the final words Pitcher leaves me with, and with the other closing remarks hinting at further expansion beyond Canada, the Managing Partner seems to be living by this maxim. Be it the education he picked up in Tampa, the lessons learnt in sales, or even a chance encounter with a childhood hero, Pitcher appears to be aiming to continually build and expand upon what he has experienced.
Paul Pitcher is also speaking on a sales and marketing strategies panel at deBanked CONNECT Toronto on July 25th alongside Smarter Loans President Vlad Sherbatov and SEO Consultant Paul Teitelman.
Canada’s Alternative Financing Market Is Taking Off
May 20, 2019
Canadians have been slow out of the gate when it comes to mass adoption of alternative financing, but times are changing, presenting opportunities and challenges for those who focus on this growing market.
Historically, the Canadian credit market has traditionally been dominated by a few main banks; consumers or businesses that weren’t approved for funding through them didn’t have a multitude of options. The door, however, is starting to unlock, as awareness increases about financing alternatives and speed and convenience become more important, especially to younger Canadians.
Indeed, the Canada alternative finance market experienced considerable growth in 2017—the latest period for which data is available. Market volume reached $867.6 million, up 159 percent from $334.5 million in 2016, according to a report by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and the Ivey Business School at Western University. Balance sheet business lending makes up the largest proportion of Canadian alternative finance, accounting for 57 percent of the market; overall, this model grew 378 percent to $494 million in 2017, according to the report.
Industry participants say the growth trajectory in Canada is continuing. It’s being driven by a number of factors, including tightening credit standards by banks, growing market demand for quick and easy funding and broader awareness of alternative financing products.
To meet this growing demand, new alternative financing companies are coming to the market all the time, says Vlad Sherbatov, president and co-founder of Smarter Loans, which works with about three dozen of Canada’s top financing companies. He predicts that over time more players will enter the market—from within Canada and also from the U.S.—and that product types will continue to grow as demand and understanding of the benefits of alternative finance become more well-known. Notably, 42 percent of firms that reported volumes in Canada were primarily headquartered in the U.S., according to the Cambridge report.
To be sure, the Canadian market is much smaller than the U.S. and alternative finance isn’t ever expected to overtake it in size or scope. That’s because while the country is huge from a geographic standpoint, it’s not as densely populated as the U.S., and businesses are clustered primarily in a few key regions.
To put things in perspective, Canada has an estimated population of around 37 million compared with the U.S.’s roughly 327 million. On the business front, Canada is similar to California in terms of the size and scope of its small business market, estimates Paul Pitcher, managing partner at SharpShooter, a Toronto-based funder, who also operates First Down Funding in Annapolis, Md.
Nonetheless, alternative lenders and funders in Canada are becoming more of a force to be reckoned with by a number of measures. Indeed, a majority of Canadians now look to online lenders as a viable alternative to traditional financial institutions, according to the 2018 State of Alternative Lending in Canada, a study conducted by online comparison service Smarter Loans.
Of the 1,160 Canadians surveyed about the loan products they have recently received, only 29 percent sought funding from a traditional financial institution, such as a bank, the study found. At the same time, interest in alternative loans has been on an upward trajectory since 2013. Twenty-four percent of respondents indicated they sought their first loan with an alternative lender in 2018. Overall, nearly 54 percent of respondents submitted their first application with a non-traditional lender within the past three years, according to the report.
Like in the U.S., there’s a mix of alternative financing companies in Canada. A number of companies offer factoring and invoicing and payday loans. But there’s a growing number focused on consumer and business lending as well as merchant cash advance.
Some major players in the Canadian alternative lending or funding landscape include Fairstone Financial (formerly CitiFinancial Canada), an established non-bank lender that recently began offering online personal loans in select provinces; Lendified, an online small business lender; Thinking Capital, an online small business lender and funder; easyfinancial, the business arm of alternative financial company goeasy Ltd. that focuses on lending to non-prime consumers; OnDeck, which offers small business financing loans and lines of credit; and Progressa, which provides consolidation loans to consumers.
By comparison, the merchant cash advance space has fewer players; it is primarily dominated by Thinking Capital and less than a dozen smaller companies, although momentum in the space is increasing, industry participants say.
“The U.S. got there 10 years ago, we’re still catching up,” says Avi Bernstein, chief executive and co-founder of 2M7 Financial Solutions, a Toronto-based merchant cash advance company.
OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
In terms of opportunities, Canada has a population that is very used to dealing with major banks and who are actively looking for alternative solutions that are faster and more convenient, says Sherbatov of Smarter Loans. This is especially true for the younger population, which is more tech-savvy and prefers to deal with finances on the go, he says.
Because the alternative financing landscape is not as developed in Canada, new and innovative products can really make a significant impact and capture market share. “We think this is one of the key reasons why there’s been such an influx of international companies, from the U.S. and U.K. for example, that are looking to enter the Canadian market,” he says.
Just recently, for example, Funding Circle announced it would establish operations in Canada during the second half of 2019. “Canada’s stable, growing economy coupled with good access to credit data and progressive regulatory environment made it the obvious choice,” said Tom Eilon, managing director of Funding Circle Canada, in a March press release announcing the expansion. “The most important factor [in coming to Canada] though was the clear need for additional funding options among Canadian SMEs,” he said.
OnDeck, meanwhile, recently solidified its existing business in Canada through the purchase of Evolocity Financial Group, a Montreal-based small business funder. The combined firm represents a significantly expanded Canadian footprint for both companies. OnDeck began doing business in Canada in 2014 and has originated more than CAD$200 million in online small business loans there since entering the market. For its part, Evolocity has provided over CAD$240 million of financing to Canadian small businesses since 2010.
“There is an enormous need among underserved Canadian small businesses to access capital quickly and easily online, supported by trusted and knowledgeable customer service experts,” Noah Breslow, OnDeck’s chairman and chief executive, said in a December 2018 press release announcing the firms’ nuptials.
There are also a number of home grown Canadian companies that are benefiting from the growth in the alternative financing market.
2M7 Financial Solutions, which focuses on merchant cash advances, is one of these companies. It was founded in 2008 to meet the growing credit needs within the small and medium-sized business market at a time when businesses were having trouble in this regard.
But only in the past few years has MCA in Canada really started picking up to the point where Bernstein, the chief executive, says the company now receives applications from about 200 to 300 companies a month, which represents more than 50 percent growth from last year.
“We’re seeing more quality businesses, more quality merchants applying and the average funding size has gone up as well,” he says.
NAVIGATING THROUGH CHALLENGES
Despite heightened growth possibilities, there are also significant headwinds facing companies that are seeking to crack the Canadian alternative financing market. For various reasons, some companies have even chosen to pull back or out of Canada and focus their efforts elsewhere. Avant, for example, which offers personal loans in the U.S., is no longer accepting new loan applications in Canada at this time, according to its website. Capify also recently exited the Canadian business it entered in 2007, even as it continues to bulk up in the U.K. and Australia.
One of the challenges alternative lenders face in Canada is distrust of change. Since Canadians are so used to dealing with only a few major financial institutions to handle all their finances, they are skeptical to change this behavior, especially when the customer experience shifts from physical branches to online apps and mobile devices, says Sherbatov of Smarter Loans. He notes that adoption of fintech products in Canada has lagged in recent years, partially because there has been a lack of awareness and trust in new financial products available.
One way Smarter Loans has been working to strengthen this trust is by launching a “Smarter Loans Quality Badge,” which acts as a certification for alternative financing companies on its platform. It is issued to select companies that meet specified quality standards, including transparency in fees, responsible lending practices, customer support and more, he says.
The Canadian Lenders Association, whose members include lenders and merchant cash advance companies, has also been working to promote the growing industry and foster safe and ethical lending practices. For example, it recently began rolling out the SMART Box pricing disclosure model and comparison tool that was introduced to small businesses in the U.S. in 2016.
Another challenge that impacts alternative lenders in the consumer space is having restricted access to alternative data sources. Because of especially strict consumer privacy laws, access is “substantially more limited” than it is in any other geography,” says Jason Mullins, president and chief executive of goeasy, a lending company based in Mississauga, Ontario, that provides consumer leasing, unsecured and secured personal loans and merchant point-of-sale financing.
From a lending perspective, goeasy focuses on the non-prime consumer—generally those with credit scores of under 700. Mullins says the market consists of roughly 7 million Canadians, about a quarter of the population of Canadians with credit scores. The non-prime consumer market is huge and has tremendous potential, he says, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
Another issue facing alternative lenders is the relative difficulty of raising loan capital from institutional lenders, says Ali Pourdad, co-founder and chief executive of Progressa, which recently reached the $100 million milestone in funded loans for underserved Canadian consumers. “The onus is on the alternative lenders to ensure they have good lending practices and are underwriting responsibly,” he says.
What’s more, household debt to income ratios in Canada are getting progressively worse, with Canadians taking on too much debt relative to what they can afford, Pourdad says. As the situation has been deteriorating over time, there is inherently more risk to originators as well as the capital that backs them. “Originators, now more than ever, have to be cautious about their lending practices and ensure their underwriting is sound and that they are being responsible,” he says.
On the small business side of alternative lending, getting the message out to would-be customers can be a challenge in Canada. In U.S. there are thousands of ISOs reaching out to businesses, whereas in Canada, most funders have a direct sales force, with a much smaller portion of their revenue coming from referral partners, says Adam Benaroch, president of CanaCap, a small business funder based in Montreal.
He predicts this will change over time as the business matures and more funders enter the space, giving ISOs the ability to offer a broader array of financing products at competitive rates. “I think we’re going to see pricing go down and more opportunities develop, and as this happens, the business is going to grow, which is exactly what has happened in the U.S,” he says.
Generally speaking, Canadian businesses are still somewhat skeptical of merchant cash advance and require considerable hand-holding to become comfortable with the idea.
“You can’t wait for them to come to you, you have to go to them and explain what the products are,” says Pitcher of SharpShooter, the MCA funding company.
While Pitcher predicts more companies will continue to enter the Canadian alternative financing market, he doesn’t think it will be completely overrun by new entrants—the market simply isn’t big enough, he says. “It’s not for everyone,” he says.
Shopify’s Funding Automation Key to Its Growth
May 2, 2018
Canadian e-commerce company Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) has a business funding arm called Shopify Capital that issued $60.4 million in merchant cash advances in Q1 this year, according to the company’s earnings report yesterday.
The funding operation offers an MCA product exclusively to merchants that are customers of Shopify. The company helps small business owners create online stores, with products ranging from web design to marketing and analytics. Currently, Shopify supports more than 600,000 small businesses worldwide.
Shopify Capital was launched in April 2016, but a company representative said it wasn’t until April 2017 that it started using algorithms 100 percent to automate offers of capital to merchants.
“What Shopify can see is a lot of patterns in a merchant’s [online] store,” a company spokesperson told AltFinanceDaily. “How engaged is that merchant? What has their GMV (Gross Merchant Volume) been? How spotty is their GMV? How often do they sell? There’s a bunch of different factors that help us predict GMV going forward. And as [our] algorithm gets better and smarter, we are able to get more granular in our offers.”
Many of Shopify Capital’s small business owner clients are new business owners who would not qualify for loans from banks, but need money to expand their businesses.
“Business owners typically spend copious hours putting an application together and funds typically take two to three weeks to receive,” a different Shopify spokesperson said. “Shopify Capital is designed to provide our merchants with timely access to Capital without putting them through additional financial stress…[And] merchants receive financing based on our predictive technology to determine what makes sense for their business in their trajectory.”
Shopify was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.
Re-Banked
April 23, 2017
Just a few years ago, the financial services community was fixing for a battle of David and Goliath proportions—with scrappy, upstart online lenders threatening to rise up and vanquish the fearful and mighty brick and mortar banks. Instead, the unexpected happened: a number of well-respected online lenders and banks set aside their battle arms and began looking for ways to collaborate with their rivals—offloading loans, making referral agreements and establishing more formal partnerships, for example.
“In the real world, sometimes David wins. Sometimes Goliath wins. Just as plausibly, sometimes both sides carve up a market and they often have different offerings that target unique customers,” says Brayden McCarthy, vice president of strategy at Fundera, a New York-based marketplace for small business lending that works with a variety of lenders, including traditional banks.
Certainly, the change didn’t happen overnight. But over time, both online lenders and banks have been forced to tailor their expectations more closely to market realities. Despite their fast growth trajectory, several online lenders have come to realize that they lack several things many banks have, namely a strong, time-tested brand, a solid customer base and ample capital. Banks, meanwhile, have realized that their slow start out of the gate with respect to technology is a severe competitive disadvantage, and that they need more nimble, savvy partners to stay in the game.
Given these shifts, more and more online lenders and banks are taking the approach that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Although some industry leaders are actively pursuing strategies that put them in direct competition with banks, partnerships of varying degrees between traditional banks and alternative players are increasingly common. As a result, the lines separating the two are getting increasingly blurry.
“Market forces are acting as a shotgun at the wedding. Whether the two sides are entirely comfortable with the marriage is irrelevant, they need one another,” says Patricia Hewitt, chief executive of PG Research & Advisory Services LLC in Savannah, Georgia. “They’re stronger together than they are alone.”
The evolution of Square is a prime example. The San Francisco-based company really packed a punch in the merchant services world with its mobile card reader designed for small businesses. From there, the payments company sought additional ways to diversify, eventually turning to merchant cash advance as a way to help small business customers obtain funds quickly. Then, in March of last year, Square moved into online lending, teaming up with Celtic Bank of Utah to offer small business loans online. The partnership got off to a running start. In its most recent earnings report, Square said it facilitated 40,000 business loans totaling $248 million in the fourth quarter of 2016—up 68 percent year over year—while maintaining loan default rates at roughly 4 percent.
Even SoFi, the San Francisco-based online lender that has been pointedly outspoken in its anti-bank rhetoric, now has bank-like aspirations. In February, the lender acquired mobile banking startup Zenbanx, giving it the ability to offer checking accounts and credit cards in 2017. Also in February, SoFi teamed up with Promontory Interfinancial Network to enable community banks to purchase super-prime student loans originated by the online lender. Large banks have been buying SoFi loans for several years.
COLLABORATION IS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE
Many see collaboration between banks and online lenders as a logical step in the industry’s evolution. Online disrupters have forever changed the face of lending—in the same way that online brokerage shaped the financial advisor industry, according to Bill Ullman, chief commercial officer of Orchard Platform.
“There’s a tendency to want to view things as either black or white, online lenders vs. banks. The reality is that the entire financial services industry is undergoing a transformation with technology as the core driver,” he says. “I am of the view that both traditional financial services companies and fintech players can survive and thrive,” Ullman says.
For its part, Orchard recently inked a deal with Sandler O’Neill that provides access to the Orchard platform for the investment bank and brokerage firm’s bank and specialty finance clients. The deal is expected to help small banks better evaluate their options with respect to online lending opportunities.
Partnerships between online lenders and banks take many forms. Some of them are behind the scenes, where marketplaces sell loans to banks or banks informally refer customers. Others are more public. For example, in September 2015, Prosper and Radius Bank of Boston teamed up to offer personal loans to certain customers through the bank’s website using the Prosper platform. Customers can borrow from $2,000 to $35,000 in this manner.
Then in December 2015, JPMorgan Chase and OnDeck joined forces in order to dramatically speed up the process of providing loans to some of the banking giant’s small business customers. In April 2016, Regions Bank and Avant announced a partnership to better serve customers who don’t meet Regions’ credit criteria.
Avant’s customers typically have a credit score between 600 and 700, while Regions sets the bar higher. “The benefit for banks is that they do not need to worry about a platform taking away customers that meet their own credit criteria,” according to Carolyn Blackman Gasbarra, head of public relation at Avant.
She notes that Avant expects to replicate this model with more banks in 2017. “Lately many platforms and banks have come to realize their counterparts are more friend than foe,” she says.
Given the changing tides, industry watchers expect to see more relationships develop between online lenders and banks over time. These could include referral agreements, technology licensing arrangements, formalized revenue-sharing partnerships and perhaps even outright acquisitions.
PARTNERSHIP ADVANTAGES
Certainly, working together can be mutually beneficial for both online lenders and banks. For new online lenders and other fintech players, partnering with an established bank allows them to bypass significant regulatory and compliance hurdles because the necessary requirements are already in place.
“Why jump through all the hoops when you can just have a buddy system with an existing lender?” says Kerri Moriarty, head of company development at Cinch Financial, a Boston-based company dedicated to helping people make smarter investment decisions.
Fintechs that license their technology to banks still have to meet the high standards of third-party vendors determined by bank regulators, notes Stan Orszula, co-head of the fintech team at the Chicago law firm Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg LLP.
“But it’s still less onerous than being a direct lender,” says Orszula, who works closely with banks and fintech providers on legal, regulatory and corporate issues. “They are learning that they need banks. They really do.”
Even seasoned online lenders that have a regulatory framework in place can benefit from bank relationships by using banks’ established brands as leverage. “Everyone knows Chase, Bank of America and American Express,” says McCarthy of Fundera. “They have a solid name and a solid in-built customer base to be able to offer product to them,” he says.
Teaming up with a bank gives added credibility to an online lender, at a time when the public’s confidence has faltered due to highly publicized troubles at certain firms. “Partnering has a very important signaling effect that these online players are here to stay,” McCarthy says.
Banks, meanwhile, need the nimbleness and innovation that online lenders provide. “Banks realize they have to catch up with the fintech disrupters,” says Mark E. Curry, president and chief executive of SOL Partners, which provides strategic management and information technology consulting services to financial services companies.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
When it comes to partnerships between banks and online players, there are numerous options. In the small business lending space, for example, McCarthy of Fundera says he expects banks to continue buying loans from online lenders, as they have been for many years. He also expects more banks will route declined applicants to online lenders or online loan brokers. “This is a partnership that will allow them to make up some incremental revenue by referring business,” he says.
In addition, McCarthy says he expects banks to make products available through online marketplaces and use an online lender’s technology for online loan applications. He also expects banks will use online lenders’ technology for underwriting and servicing loans.
Years ago, before John Donovan joined Bizfi, he recalls talking to a salesman for a large national bank. The bank didn’t offer a lending product that he could give to small businesses and the salesman was losing customers as a result. “That’s where we see a lot of those opportunities,” says Donovan, chief executive of the online marketplace for small business loans.
For instance in March 2016, Bizfi partnered with Western Independent Bankers, a trade association, for over about 600 community and regional banks, to link small business clients to financing options through Bizfi. Many banks don’t offer small business loans below $150,000, whereas the average loan Bizfi does is $40,000, Donovan says, adding that the company would like to develop additional relationships similar to its agreement with Western Independent Bankers.
In the future, he predicts fintechs will continue to be more receptive to the idea of working with banks and vice versa, as the industry digests the impact of deals that are still in their early days.
FINDING STRATEGIC GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
As banks and online lenders become increasingly accustomed to working together, there may be more opportunities for strategic acquisitions. For instance, Sandeep Kumar, managing director of Synechron, a global consulting and technology firm, expects to see banks—especially mid-tier players that don’t have the resources to innovate like big banks buying lending-related start-ups. He says banks will likely be most interested in companies that can help them with AI and other techniques to pinpoint where they should spend more efforts on cross-selling and customer profiling, for example. “There are many start-ups in this area that have very compelling technology,” he says.
On the other hand, Chris Skinner, an independent commentator at The Finanser Ltd., a research and consulting firm in London, points out that the two cultures don’t always mesh. “Quite a few startups have young, entrepreneurial founders that would loath the idea being acquired by a bank. So it really depends on the circumstances,” he says.
Valuation differences between large banks and leading online lenders may also be a sticking point for some deals, Ullman of Orchard points out. Banks’ concern over their valuation “will place a certain amount of restraint and discipline on the tech M&A activities they pursue,” he says.
ANTICIPATING TROUBLE IN PARADISE
While increased collaboration between online lenders and banks sounds good on the surface, John Zepecki, group head of product management for lending at D+H in San Francisco, urges both sides to proceed with caution. “You have to find an arrangement where you don’t have conflict,” he says. “If your innovation partner also is a competitor, it’s a challenge. If you have an inherent conflict, it doesn’t get better over time.”
That’s one reason why companies like Chicago-based Akouba have come on the scene. In Akouba’s case, its goal is to provide banks with the technology such that they don’t have to partner with an online lender that has the potential to compete for business. “We don’t compete with the bank in any way whatsoever,” says Chris Rentner, the company’s founder and chief executive.
Akouba’s business lending platform—which the American Bankers Association endorsed in February—provides banks with leading edge technology that integrates the bank’s own unique credit policies into a convenient, online process—from application to documentation— all the way to closing and funding. The bank uses its own credit policies, originates its own loans and owns the entire brand and customer relationship.
Rentner says he started the business with the idea in mind that the online lending model wouldn’t be sustainable long-term and that working alongside banks—as opposed to competing head to head— was the direction to go. “The idea that they could somehow get all of the consumers out of the banking world and onto their platforms was never going to happen. That’s why we exist today,” he says.
Confessions of a Fintech Chief Data Scientist
January 8, 2017
My name is Justin Dickerson. For most of 2016, I was the Chief Data Scientist at Snap Advances (Snap), a funding company of merchant cash advances based in Salt Lake City, Utah. I can’t discuss my awesome work at Snap for obvious reasons. And fortunately, I don’t need to in order to make the key points I want to convey through this article. That’s because I’ve also been a senior level data scientist at two other companies, and I’m also a well-regarded statistician who holds one of the most prestigious credentials offered by the American Statistical Association.
One discovery over the past year prompted me to start collecting my thoughts for this article. I was looking at the financial performance of On Deck Capital (the largest company in the alternative fintech industry which is also publicly traded) through the first nine months of 2016 relative to the same period in 2015. Gross revenue increased more than $22 million while net income for the same period fell nearly $50 million. I’m not an accountant, but that doesn’t sound good to me. And let’s face it, this fact doesn’t surprise anyone in our industry, especially given what’s happening at CAN Capital. But one interesting and overlooked fact is worth considering. According to my Linkedin search, there were between 30 and 40 data scientists (all levels) working for On Deck Capital during the same time period in which they lost $50 million. So, not only does On Deck Capital lose a lot of money, it appears they need a lot of intellectual horsepower to figure out how to do so.
And here we are today. We’re looking at an industry full of companies trying to navigate the abyss of hyper-aggressive originators and spiraling default rates. If you’re a Chief Data Scientist for one of these companies, you’re undoubtedly feeling the heat from your management team. The problem is simple. How do you grow your business (or even stabilize it) in an environment where you have to take too many uncomfortable risks? We’ll ignore the fact this question has plagued much larger industries for many years (e.g., trying to compete against Wal Mart in the retail space). Boards of Directors in alternative fintech have short memories and believe this is a unique problem to their industry and era. As a result, data scientists are at a premium as they’re seen as key players in how to resolve this crisis and steer their companies to safe harbors. Well, here is my opinion. They’re dead wrong, and here is why.
Data Scientists Are Tactical, not Strategic
This statement may end up being the most controversial thing said in the data science industry this year. But let me make my case. Of those 30-40 data scientists working for On Deck Capital, more than 80% of them have a Master’s degree in a field of study synonymous with data science. Specifically, many of them attended Columbia University’s Master’s degree program in Operations Research. The four required courses for that degree are: Optimization Models and Methods, Introduction to Probability and Statistics, Stochastic Models, and Simulation. From there, students can choose from one of six concentrations (all but one of which are targeted toward quantitative methods). Further, students selected for this program already have highly refined quantitative skills as demonstrated by the pre-requisite courses for admission (e.g., multivariate calculus, linear algebra, etc.). So, in essence, the program takes really smart quantitative people (quants) and makes them even smarter quants, while sprinkling in 6 elective courses which may or may not provide an opportunity to learn something about the “real” world of business.
Make no mistake, the students attracted to programs such as these generally aren’t the professionals you send to meet with investors and pitch them on new strategic directions for a company. They are the professionals who sit in cubicles and spend their days writing code. They are experts in programming languages such as R, Python, Java, Scala, and many others. Ironically, they are enslaved to similar rules which govern the same supervised machine learning algorithms they create each day. They aren’t allowed to “get out of the box” and see the “forest through the trees.” If I’m portraying them as a bit robotic, that’s intentional on my part.
I don’t want to leave the impression data scientists can’t think for themselves. Specifically, those who earn a PhD are known to have such skills and are often praised for their abilities to rise above the technical chains of their existence and offer strategic direction to an organization. But they are few and far between in the data science factory found deep in the bowels of companies like On Deck Capital. Instead, more and more alternative fintech companies seek out the same “cookie-cutter” data scientist who can check off the same boxes on the hiring list. This means the data scientist role is relegated to a part of the company lacking diversity of thought, creativity, and the organizational respect needed to save a company from itself.
The Law of Diminishing Returns
One of the most intelligent questions asked of me within the alternative fintech industry was, “do we really have enough data to justify so many data scientists?” As a Chief Data Scientist, you always want to answer that question with an emphatic, “YES!” Even better, you may tell your management team you need even more data scientists to make a “real and lasting contribution to the company.” After all, the existence of your team depends on it. But when you’re away from the management team and thinking about the structure of your department, the honest Chief Data Scientist knows the company is at risk of experiencing the law of diminishing returns.
All of us can recognize the law of diminishing returns from our freshman year Economics course. In short, it’s the concept of achieving less than a one to one relationship between an additional unit of input relative to the resulting measured output. For example, the reduction in default rate for a financial product is hardly ever proportional to the number of data scientists employed by the company to predict default rates. In fact, I would argue once you have more than two or three data scientists, even the largest organizations would have a difficult time justifying the payroll investment based on proportional gains in default rate management.
So, why do companies like On Deck Capital have so many data scientists? I believe it’s more akin to the comfort food we all like to eat in the winter. There is hardly anything as satisfying as my grandmother’s homemade chili during a cold Utah night. And the more of it I get, the warmer I feel! The problem is the chill of winter eventually fades and the light of day shone on financial statements eventually begs the question of whether we’ve simply eaten too much.
Make no mistake, NO organization needs endless amounts of data scientists to be successful. In fact, I would argue two or three excellent data scientists armed with superior data science/machine learning platform technology such as those offered by IBM, Microsoft, or DataRobot is more than enough to guide an organization to success. The key when thinking about staffing a data science department is to think in terms of credibility. If I have three data scientists each armed with PhD training, 15 years of industry experience, and the tools (such as a great machine learning platform) to do the mundane parts of data science usually done by legions of Master’s degree data scientists, am I more credible in the organization than I am with 30 quants who all grew up in an economy where nothing bad ever happened to financial institutions? If you want your data scientists to help your organization, you’ve got to be willing to let them into the board room and present digestible recommendations for action. So the question becomes, do I have a team that is credible enough to meet such a standard?
The Supremacy of Domain Expertise
I learned a lot during my time as a Chief Data Scientist. Since leaving Snap, I’ve established two companies. The first is Crossfold Analytics. This is my data science consulting company. We only serve the fintech industry and we spend most of our time building real-time machine learning prediction services for small to mid-sized fintech companies. And I think we’re darn good at it! The second company is Crossfold Capital. This is my independent sales organization (ISO) focusing on merchant cash advance, business loan, and factoring products. It was when I established Crossfold Capital that I learned the most valuable lesson of all about data science in alternative fintech. Nothing will ever replace the experience of working in the trenches of the business (what I call “domain” expertise). In alternative fintech, this is generally working within the trenches of a sales organization. If I could go back in time and start over as Chief Data Scientist at Snap, I would start my job by underwriting files and selling merchant cash advances for a month. Absolutely nothing I learned in math, statistics, or any quantitative subject can replace what I’ve learned running my own ISO in just the past two months. I wish every alternative fintech company would adopt a training program for data scientists that allowed them to spend their first month in the field calling on clients and working with potential customers. If you understand the business, you can bring immeasurable value to your company by blending that understanding with your technical skills as a data scientist. I truly believe such an approach could take the power of a data scientist and magnify it three-fold. Otherwise, you end up having a rogue department of quants that people in the trenches of the business either don’t understand or don’t trust.
My Recommendation to Alternative Fintech Companies
Based on what I’ve learned as an alternative fintech data science professional, I would make three recommendations to all companies in our industry. First, hire diverse talent. It’s imperative a data scientist knows enough about coding to be effective at building predictive models. But I would trade extensive coding expertise for a data scientist who also had a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in business administration. We don’t need an army of robots in data science. We need gifted thinkers who also happen to have advanced technical skills. Second, don’t “over-eat” even though it can be cold outside. More data scientists aren’t going to solve your problems. In fact, hiring the same type of data scientist only encourages “group-think” which can actually be very detrimental to your organization. Focus on building a credible data science department, not a massive data science department. Finally, put your smartest people in the dirt of the business. Have them spend a week underwriting files. Then send them to sell your products with one of your ISO managers. Don’t treat your data scientists as fragile figurines. As a good friend of mine from Texas says about his gun collection, “they may be worth a lot, but they’re so dirty from hunting you wouldn’t know it!”
I hope my confessions help your organization navigate both fair seas and choppy water.
