Capify Announces New Appointment to Lead Broker Division
March 7, 2024Leading online SME lender, Capify, has appointed Mike Morris to lead its broker business in the UK.
Mike joins Capify after five years with Funding Circle, most recently as Head of Business Development, where he was responsible for leading the lender’s broker network.
With nearly 20 years experience in the finance industry, including time at Close Brothers retail finance, Mike will focus on the growth and expansion of Capify’s introducer relationships and its marketplace offering.
“I’m hugely excited to join Capify to build out its broker programme and exponentially grow this channel for one of the first online SME lenders in the UK market,” said Mike.
“Capify occupies a vital place in the funding landscape – offering much-needed fast, flexible and responsible solutions for businesses. We’re focused on ensuring that introducers understand our offering and how we can help their clients. Our growth will then be realised by launching new products that go up and down the credit spectrum, providing the best possible service to enable the brokers, and ultimately the clients they represent, to get the funds they need to thrive in the current climate. Our goal is to have an offering for all types of businesses so we can be a one-stop shop for brokers and their clients. I look forward to Capify announcing these new offerings in the near future.”
Capify was launched in the UK in 2008, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, when many small and medium-sized businesses were struggling to access funding from banks. Last year it was named the UK Credit Awards SME Lender of the Year (up to £1m). The company was founded initially in the United States in 2002 making it one of the world’s first online alternative financing companies for SMEs globally.
John Rozenbroek, COO/CFO at Capify, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to welcome Mike to the Capify team. Brokers play an integral role in helping businesses understand the complex funding landscape and the types of finance that are best suited to their needs. His appointment underlines our commitment to introducers and marks an exciting new stage in Capify’s continued growth.”
ABOUT CAPIFY
Capify is an online lender that provides flexible financing solutions to SMEs seeking working capital to sustain or grow their business. Alongside its sister company, Capify Australia, the fintech businesses have been serving their respective markets for over 15 years. In that time, it has provided finance to thousands of businesses, ensuring the UK’s vibrant and vital SME community can meet the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow.
For more details about Capify, visit: http://www.capify.co.uk
Capify Contact:
Ash Yazdani, Marketing Director
ayazdani@capify.co.uk
Media enquiries
Sam Gallagher, Director
sam.gallagher@1473media.com
Top Industry Execs Attend Small Business Finance Leaders Summit in Washington DC
January 29, 2024
Fifty top C-level executives attended the Small Business Finance Leaders Summit in Washington DC last week to discuss the economy, small business finance, policy issues, regulatory impacts, and industry best practices. Co-hosted by two major trade organizations, the Small Business Finance Association (SBFA) and the Innovative Lending Platform Association (ILPA), it was invite-only and open to members of both.
Speakers included US Senator Roger Marshall, Tom Sullivan from the US Chamber of Commerce, Holly Wade from the National Federation of Independent Business, Aaron Klein from Brookings, Will Tumulty from Rapid Finance, Justin Bakes from Forward Financing, Kirk Chartier from OnDeck, and Steve Allocca from Funding Circle, among others.
“As our industry matures, it’s important to provide industry leaders with an opportunity to connect and engage with high-level thought leaders,” said Steve Denis, Executive Director of the SBFA. “We believe our C-level Summit complements the Broker Fair and other industry conferences like Money 20/20 or Nexus. We hope to expand our Summit in June to bring in some new industry voices and will continue to focus on high-end content that is meaningful and strategic for our members and other top industry leaders.”
The organizations are planning another Summit in early June to build upon the success.
Surprising Stats of 2023
December 27, 2023Remember when interest rates soared, banks collapsed, and experts began to prepare for the worst? Well, appearances can be deceiving.
Business loan origination volume at Square, Enova, Shopify, and Funding Circle are all on track to surpass 2022’s numbers. When it came to bad debt, PayPal was the only large tech lender to announce that it had become a problem this year. PayPal’s origination numbers are consequently also down year-over-year.
The S&P 500 was at 3,839.50 one year ago and closed at 4,774.75 yesterday, a gain of more than 24%.
Unemployment was 3.5% last December and had only modestly increased to 3.7% this November.
Inflation was 7.1% last November and only 3.1% this November.
Bitcoin is up by 150% year-over-year!
Anecdotal reports at smaller non-public small business funders, however, have hinted at bad debt increases all year and underwriting has generally become more conservative. Despite this, brokers are still brokering deals and funders are still funding. The predicted mass AI-induced layoffs have also not yet materialized. In the grand scheme of things, the argument could be made that 2023 was actually a pretty good year.
But 2024 could be dicey.
- The FCC closed the lead generator loophole.
- The first wave of small business finance companies will have to begin complying with new CFPB regulations.
- It will be a presidential election year like none ever experienced before.
- Americans are overleveraged. Forty percent of student loan borrowers failed to make a payment after the covid-era pause ended.
- General economic, societal, and political unease.
So what will happen? I guess we’ll find out. It could be terrible or awesome or anything in between.
What’s In Your Cup?
August 8, 2023
“I like cold brew coffee with an extra 3 shots of espresso and 2 packets of stevia to get the day started,” said Brin Richardson, Sales Development Team Lead at Banana Exchange.
Everyone has their own unique routine that helps them power through the workday. For some, it might be caffeine.
“I think coffee, for me personally, it definitely gives me the energy I need in the morning,” said Nicolette DiAntonio, Head of ISO Relations at Lexington Capital Holdings. “First thing when I wake up I put the pot of coffee on at home. I get to work I make my second cup…”
From there it’s another 1-2 cups throughout the day for her, which she said is still less than what the company CEO drinks. “It boosts my energy, my productivity and everything like that,” she said.
“I’m like an every hour on the hour type of guy,” said Frankie DiAntonio, the CEO at Lexington Capital Holdings. “Typically, like 6,7,8,9 o’clock and then I’m going for the rest of the day. And then I might have one more in the afternoon to get me through the rest.”
That’s about 5 cups a day for him on average. “Moral of the story, we love it over here,” Frankie said. “Lexington runs on coffee.”
Brandon Schadek, Director of Sales at Leads to Business said he’s definitely more productive when he has caffeine in him. “I just tend to be more alert and more on top of things but when I don’t have it, I feel like I’m lacking that extra energy.”
Unsurprisingly, coffee is his beverage of choice for that. “First thing in the morning, I have a Keurig and I use French Roast from Starbucks,” said Schadek. “That’s what I use for the coffee and then I definitely have I would say about two teaspoons of creamer, it’s caramel macchiato. […] And I have that every day to start my day.”
But caffeine isn’t for everyone. Ryan Metcalf, Head of Public Affairs for Funding Circle US, told AltFinanceDaily that he really enjoys drinking Diet Coke, though not for the caffeine content of it.
“I love the taste of it. I like the coldness of it,” Metcalf said. Although Diet Coke has more caffeine than regular Coke, he feels that too much caffeine on a whole can actually impede one’s productivity rather than increase it. As such, he limits himself to two Diet Cokes per day and only enjoys them between the hours of noon and five pm.
“The king of all Diet Cokes is a fountain Diet Coke from McDonald’s,” Metcalf said. “There is nothing better.”
Congressional Effort Underway to Reinstate the SBLC Moratorium
July 23, 2023It only took 40 years for the SBA to lift the moratorium on licenses for Small Business Lending Companies. Now there’s a congressional effort underway to reinstate it. The “Community Advantage Loan Program Act” which had not been assigned its own individual bill number in the Senate at the time of this writing, nevertheless garnered 18-1 approval by the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee last week.
First, the proposal concludes that the SBA does not have adequate resources to issue more than 3 new SBLC licenses. Second, it calls for a 5-year moratorium on new licensees having Delegated Authority which is the authority granted to a lender to process, close, service, and liquidate SBA loans without prior SBA review. Third, it imposes new annual stress tests that would enable the SBA to revoke the new licenses. All in all, it is effectively a rollback of the new SBA rules, and those are just some key components of it.
Senators Ben Cardin, D-Md. and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, are the sponsors of the proposal.
Among the small business lending companies that would be impacted by this is Funding Circle. Ryan Metcalf, Head of U.S. Public Affairs at Funding Circle, told AltFinanceDaily that “We estimate that the proposed Cardin/Ernst bill would reduce 7(a) Small Loans made by Funding Circle over the next three years by 26%, of which 33% is to SMB in LMI neighborhoods and 40% in rural areas.” That’s without considering the increased regulatory costs or the likely reduced borrower conversion rate as a result of having non-delegated authority, Metcalf added.
The initiative by Cardin and Ernst does not come as a surprise. The two had been critical of the the SBA’s plans to allow more SBLCs all along, arguing that new licensees were likely to be fintechs who were “the very entities responsible for issuing billions of dollars-worth of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) fraud”
Federal Legislators Jump on Commercial Financing Disclosure Bandwagon, Renew Push to Give CFPB Authority Over Industry
June 16, 2023
Feel like there’s a lot of state-level disclosure going around lately? Well now some members of Congress believe another layer is needed at the federal level. In a bill titled the “Small Business Financing Disclosure Act of 2023,” the language looks awfully familiar. There’s a Double Dipping clause in it, for example, which was a term first seen in a New York State law.
The federal bill, which was introduced by US Senator Robert Menendez and Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez, seeks to place the small business finance industry under the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). As part of that, the Director (currently Rohit Chopra) would be responsible for devising all the rules and formulas, according to the bill. Furthermore, with regards to sales-based financing, the bill specifically states:
1. The provider must disclose an APR.
2. The estimated term of repayment and periodic payments based on projected sales volume must be disclosed.
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of the American economy,” said Congresswoman Velázquez. “But for too long, predatory lenders have taken advantage of businesses in need of capital by offering loans and similar products with unclear terms and exorbitant interest rates.”
Supporters of the bill, including Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Ron Wyden, also stated that the bill is aimed at “predatory lenders.”
In Senator Menendez’s press statement for the bill, it cites Funding Circle, a small business lending company, as a supporter.
“We believe a free and fair market operates most efficiently when there is transparency in pricing, terms and conditions,” said Ryan Metcalf, Head of U.S. Public Affairs at Funding Circle U.S. When a small business has all of the necessary information up front including the annual percentage rate (APR), they can comparison shop and make informed decisions that are best for their business. Funding Circle supports one national uniform small business financing disclosure law because it is in the best interests of small businesses and interstate commerce.”
The push for a small business financing bill is not new. A similar bill introduced by Velázquez last year did not move forward, nor did the one from 2021, nor the one from 2019. The difference is that previous versions focused on Confessions of Judgment and fairness in small business lending. The latest version takes on the air of disclosure while attempting to subjugate the whole industry to CFPB regulatory authority.
Impact of ChatGPT Era Already Being Felt
May 16, 2023
Anyone that’s ever faced a coding hurdle has inevitably ended up on Stack Overflow, the go-to platform for developers to solicit answers from more experienced professionals about their challenges. Users typically explain what they’re trying to accomplish and paste a copy of the code that’s not achieving the desired result. That’s where the community chimes in, coming forth with their own solutions while other users upvote the best answers. The end result is not just a grateful user but an ever growing public database of questions and solutions available for public consumption. The sheer scope of what’s been compiled has opened up the door for other users to simply find a similar enough question that’s already been asked and copy the answer. It’s a very valuable tool.
Stack Overflow has been around for 15 years but from March to April of this year, traffic plummeted by 17.7%, according to SimilarWeb. Tech blog Gizmodo has suggested that a contributing cause is ChatGPT-4, the OpenAI chatbot technology that can write its own code, edit a user’s code, and even converse about what a user is trying to accomplish. A spokesperson for Stack Overflow confirmed to Gizmodo that ChatGPT was partially responsible for its loss of users. “However, our vision for community and AI coming together means the rise of GenAI is a big opportunity for Stack,” the spokesperson added.
But what’s a coding forum for nerds and brainiacs got to do with the lending industry? Well, for one thing borrowers were already flirting with asking virtual assistants for help with financial services products before ChatGPT even entered the ring. According to the most recent Smarter Loans survey, 16% of loan applicants surveyed said that they had at some point used Alexa, Siri, or other voice search tools to find information about financial services. None of those come even remotely close to what ChatGPT-4 is able to do. And AI is popular, so popular in fact that ChatGPT became the fastest growing app in history, crushing even the likes of TikTok in pace of growth. ChatGPT already had 100 million monthly users as of February, before its signature ChatGPT-4 model was released.
Therein lies the threat because not only is ChatGPT-4 incredibly adept at making coherent conversation but it is also ready to explain a concept or make a recommendation, just like a very knowledgeable friend would. For example, when asking it to make a list of the top small business funding companies, these were among the names it spit out:
- OnDeck
- American Express (Kabbage)
- Funding Circle
- Credibly
- Square Capital
- National Funding
- PayPal Working Capital
It’s not a vomit of names. ChatGPT-4 was familiar with their areas of expertise. When pressed further it said that OnDeck would help get the cash fast but working with Square Capital might work better if one is processing a high volume of credit card transactions. For strong credit and a large loan, it suggested Funding Circle. After expressing an interest in OnDeck, the AI provided instructions on how to apply via the OnDeck website and a phone # to call with questions. In this real-world example, the AI replaced both the online search and the role of a broker all in one and all within minutes. It can also read the contracts and alert borrowers to certain clauses. When pressed about an unusually high APR, for example, the AI even offers an encouraging explanation for how moving forward could still make sense.
“Be sure to also consider the potential return on investment from using the loan funds,” it said. “If the growth or savings you anticipate from using the loan funds exceeds the cost of the loan, it may still be a good decision despite a high APR.”
SBA Lifts SBLC Moratorium
April 11, 2023
It’s official. The SBA is lifting the moratorium on licenses for Small Business Lending Companies (SBLCs), ending the 40-year pause that began in 1982. The SBA is also adding a new type of lending entity called a Community Advantage SBLC while also removing the requirement for a Loan Authorization in the 7(a) and 504 Loan Programs.
The 37-page rule, which is slated to be published in the federal register on April 12th, included the SBA’s analysis of all the comments it had received, including the criticisms. Some argued, for example, that opening up the doors would allow the unscrupulous world of fintech to participate in the market. The SBA was unmoved by this, countering that existing participants already rely on fintech.
“SBA has for many years provided oversite to non-depository entities participating in the SBA business loan programs,” the SBA said. “This includes SBLCs, non-federally regulated lenders (NFRLs), 504 Certified Development Companies (CDCs), and Microloan Intermediaries. In fact, most all lending institutions incorporate the use of financial technology in their delivery of loans and other financial products.”
One such fintech that has been eager to become a participant, issued a prepared statement on the decision earlier today.
“Funding Circle applauds the Biden Administration for ending the SBA’s 40 year moratorium on licensing additional state and SBA licensed and regulated non-depository lenders thus ending its lender oligopoly in favor of competition and innovation,” said Funding Circle. “This is an opportunity for the more than 8,000 community banks and credit unions that don’t offer 7(a) loans to partner with Fintech lenders to offer affordable loans quickly in underserved communities. Congress should now focus on ensuring SBA has the resources necessary to license more than three new lenders in its SBLC program in order to increase competition and distribution of government guaranteed loans in underserved communities.”
The SBA also published new rules on April 10th that will amend various regulations governing the 7(a) and 504 loan programs.
