Is Alternative Lending a Game of Thrones?
April 8, 2014
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…
This blog has been many things over the years, all of it relative to who the reader was. It has encouraged and deterred, informed and confused, made people laugh or stoked their anger. The merchant cash advance industry it spoke of had been small. Annual funding volume was a billion or two or three, a blip of a blip on nobody’s radar. There was a sense of unity, a shared objective amongst competitors. They were guided by one dictum, “grow, but don’t rock the boat.”
But opportunity enticed everyone, the good, the bad, and the unexpected, and it brought a relatively peaceful chapter to an end. Winter is coming, Eddard Stark would likely say of the uncertainty that hangs in the air. Merchant cash advance has become a spoke in the alternative lending wheel that is spinning forward uncontrollably. Non-bank financing has become a worldwide phenomenon virtually overnight, setting the stage for the lords of funding to play a game of thrones. Investors with bottomless pockets are emptying them, government agencies are assessing the landscape or crafting responses, and journalists stand ready to shape public opinion.
This is a transformational moment in human history, perhaps bigger than what Facebook did for social media. Individuals are taking control of the monetary supply. Strangers pay each other in bitcoins, neighbors are bypassing banks for loans and lending to each other instead, and businesses are rising and falling with the funding they get from other private businesses. Winter is coming for traditional banking. The realm calls for a new king.
Wonga’s epic rise is being countered by both regulatory and religious resistance, and the man who dared the world to lend algorithmically has admitted defeat. Peer-to-peer lenders have encountered massive regulatory setbacks on their road to stardom and merchant cash advance companies are currently engaged in a civil war over best practices. Winter is coming indeed.
The Kings
Lending Club
In what is perhaps their first step towards an IPO this year, Lending Club is reducing transparency over its loan volume. Up until April 3rd, anyone could see how many loans they issued on a daily basis. Now this information will only be available quarterly. Peter Renton in his Lend Academy blog shared his belief that the move was entirely tied to the impending IPO. “Without this daily loan volume information their stock price will be less volatile and they will be able to “manage the message” with Wall Street every quarter,” Renton wrote.
OnDeck Capital
OnDeck Capital is also in contention for an IPO this year. A year ago a company executive hinted that becoming a public company would not be on the agenda for consideration until 2015, yet I am hearing rumors that they may make a late 2014 go at it. Such rumors hold weight in light of reports that they are cleaning up their ISO channel. Insiders on DailyFunder are saying that resellers with abnormally high default rates are in jeopardy of being cut off.
OnDeck Capital is unique in that outsiders chastise them for their rates being too high while insiders argue their rates are too low to be profitable. It’s a classic example of how tough the court of public opinion can be on a lender even if they are not getting rich off their loans.
Kabbage
Kabbage came and conquered the entire online space before anyone had a chance to blink. PayPal, ebay, Amazon, Etsy, Yahoo, Square, they claimed those territories for themselves and then launched an attack into the brick and mortar space. Kabbage’s secret value is their patents. They are a serious player on a serious path.
CAN Capital
CAN Capital’s greatest weakness is their lifespan. They’ve managed to stay on top after 16 years in the business but that makes them old enough to be Kabbage’s grandfather by today’s tech standards. As a pre-dot com era business, it’s impossible to argue against their sustainability. If anyone has alternative lending figured out for both the good times and the bad, it’s CAN Capital.
The Lords
The Government
Peer-to-peer lending has already been under strong scrutiny from the Federal Government. Lending Club and Prosper are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission these days, but they may never be free of oversight. Just two months ago, the Federal Reserve published a report on trends in peer-to-peer business lending. They hinted at further regulation.
As small business owners are increasingly turning to this alternative source of money to fund their businesses, policy makers may wish to keep a close eye on both levels and terms of such lending. Because such loans require less paperwork than traditional loans, they may be considered relatively attractive. However, given the relatively higher rate paid on such loans, it may be in the best interest of the business owner to pursue more formal options. More research is required to understand the long-term impact of such loans on the longevity of the firm and more education to potential borrowers is likely in order.
– a 2014 Federal Reserve study
The Merchants
Once upon a time nobody talked about alternative lending online except for the companies offering it. Merchants didn’t talk about it with each other or there were too few businesses to give rise to centralized discussions. Today, merchants communicate and compare notes:
Merchants discuss PayPal’s working Capital program: http://community.ebay.com/t5/PayPal/PayPal-Working-Capital-Loan-DONT-SIGN-UP/td-p/17630207
Merchants discuss Square’s merchant cash advance program: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/forum/welcome-to-the-forum/square-to-offer-small-business-loans-at-exorbitant-interest-rates/
Merchants discuss Kabbage: http://community.ebay.com/t5/Part-time-eBay-Sellers/Kabbage-quot-loans-quot/td-p/3002329
OnDeck Capital’s 30+ Yelp Reviews: http://www.yelp.com/not_recommended_reviews/FOndxpkaBRP6LVIlOv6Dfw
Potential Lending Club borrowers make their cases: http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php?board=3.0
The Machines
Are computers better predictors of performance than humans? Some people think so. This debate will play a pivotal role in the future of alternative lending.
The Media
Public opinion will be at their mercy.
The Vulnerabilities
Commissions
The bigger alternative lending gets, the juicier the stories become. Just last week, Patrick Clark of BusinessWeek dove head first into the reseller model, revealing insider commissions, the truth about buy rates, and the alleged antiquated practice of enlisting a broker to secure funding. On trial was a documented 17% commission, an example I believed to be an extreme case. For a long time commissions ranged between 5% and 10% on average. But there are some big names paying up to 12 points and others boasting of 14. All were topped by the mass solicitation I received a few days ago that promised a 20% commission. These kind of figures if they continue will become an easy target for journalists looking to portray the industry in a negative light.
Stacking
There is a raging civil war within the merchant cash advance community specifically over stacking. This is the instance that a merchant sells their future revenues to two or more parties at the same time, leading to multiple daily deductions from their sales. This debate is bound to spill out into the mainstream if it cannot be resolved on its own.
Technology
Some funding companies intend to license their automated underwriting technology to banks, potentially handing the keys of alternative lending’s greatest asset (speed) to traditional bankers. It is unlikely that banks would engage in some of the high risk deals that alternative lenders target but they could recapture the top credit tier borrowers that have been flocking away from them.
Also at stake here is the sustainability of algorithmic underwriting. There are critics that believe computers appear to make great decisions during good economic periods but suffer during downturns. Do the technology based funding companies have enough data to weather a future economic storm?
So many things are happening at once, that it’s impossible to know what fate awaits the realm. Will there be a new king or will alternative lending fall apart like a house of cards?
For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is but one rule: hunt or be hunted.
-Frank Underwood
May the best man win.
Merchant Cash Advance Syndication: Crowdfunding?
March 28, 2014
You might not have known this, but one of the most lucrative opportunities in merchant cash advance is the ability to participate in deals. It’s a phenomenon Paul A. Rianda, Esq addressed in DailyFunder’s March/April issue with his piece, So You Want to Participate?
Syndication is industry jargon of course. You probably know the concept by its sexier pop culture name, crowdfunding. For all the shadowy rumors and misinformation that circulates out there about merchant cash advance companies, they’re similar to the trendy financial tech companies that have become darlings of the mainstream media.
Did you know that many merchant cash advances are crowdfunded? To date, no online marketplace has been able to gain traction in the public domain aside from perhaps FundersCloud, so crowdfunding in this industry happens almost entirely behind the scenes. There is so much crowdfunding taking place that it’s becoming something of a novelty for one party to bear 100% of the risk in a merchant cash advance transaction. Big broker shops chip in their own funds as do underwriters, account reps, specialty finance firms, hedge funds, lenders, and even friends and family members of the aforementioned.
Merchant cash advance companies find themselves playing the role of servicer quite often, which is coincidentally the model that Lending Club is built on. A $25,000 advance to an auto repair shop could be collectively funded by 10 parties, but serviced by only 1. Each participant is referred to as a syndicate. This is not quite the same system as peer-to-peer lending because syndicates are not random strangers. Syndication is typically only open to businesses, and most often ones that are familiar with the transaction such as the company brokering the deal itself.
In the immediate aftermath of the ’08-’09 financial crisis, some merchant cash advance companies became very mistrusting of brokers and deal pipelines were going nowhere. Underwriters had a list of solid rebuttals for deals they weren’t comfortable with. “If you want us to approve this deal so bad, why don’t you fund it yourself!,” underwriters would say. Such language was intended to put a broker’s objections over a declined deal to bed. But with all the money being spent to originate these deals, it wasn’t long until brokers stumbled upon a solution to put anxious merchant cash advance companies at ease. “Fund it myself? I’d love to, but I just can’t put up ALL of the cash.”
And so some brokers started off by reinvesting their commissions into the deals they made happen. That earned them a nice return, which in turn got reinvested into additional deals. Fast forward a few years later and deals are being parceled out by the truckload to brokers, underwriters, investors, lenders, and friends. There’s a lot of money to be made in commissions but anybody who’s anybody in this business has a syndication portfolio. The appetite for it is heavy. Wealthy individuals and investors spend their days cold calling merchant cash advance companies, brokers, and even me, trying to get their money into these deals. They know the ROI is high and they want in.
That’s the interesting twist about crowdfunding in the merchant cash advance industry. You can’t get in on it unless you know somebody. There are no online exchanges for anonymous investors to sign up and pay in. It requires back door meetings, contracts, and typically advice from sound legal counsel. A certain level of business acumen and financial prowess are needed to be considered. These transactions are fraught with risk.
In Lending Club’s peer-to-peer model, investors can participate in a “note” with an investment as small as $25. This is a world apart from merchant cash advance where it is commonplace to contribute a minimum of $500 per deal but can range up to well over $100,000.
Lending Club defines diversification as the possession of more than 100 notes. At $25 a pop, an investor would only need to spend $2,500. With merchant cash advance, 100 deals could be $50,000 or $10,000,000. By that measure, syndication is crowdfunding at the grownup’s table, a table that doesn’t care about sexy labels to appease silicon valley, only yield.
Strange merchant cash advance jargon keeps the industry shrouded in mystery. Did you know that split-funding and split-processing are terms often used interchangeably? Or that they have a different meaning than splitting? Or that the split refers to something else entirely?
Do you know what a holdback is or a withhold? How about a stack, a 2nd, a grasshopper, an ISO, an ACH deal, a junk, a reup, a batch, a residual, a purchase price, a factor rate, or a UCC lead?
Paul Rianda did a great job detailing the risks of syndication, but there is one thing he left unsaid, and that’s if you’re going to participate in merchant cash advances, you better be able to keep up with the conversation.
At face value, syndication is nothing more than crowdfunding. But if your reup blows up because some random UCC hunting ISO stacked an ACH on top of your split while junking him hard and upping the factor with a shorter turn, you just might curse the hopper that ignored your holdback and did a 2nd. And on that note, perhaps it’s better that the industry refrain from adopting mainstream terminology. We wouldn’t want everybody to think this business is easy. Because it’s not.
One factor to consider is the actual product being crowdfunded. In equity crowfunding, participants pool funds together to buy shares of a business. In crowdlending, participants pool funds together to make a loan. But in merchant cash advance syndication, participants pool capital to purchase future revenues of a business. An assessment is made to predict the pace of future income and a discounted price is paid to the business owner upfront. That purchase price is commonly known as the advance amount.
Syndication has more in common with equity crowdfunding than crowdlending. If you buy future revenues and the business fails, then your purchase becomes worthless. There is typically no recourse against the business owner personally unless they purposely interfere with the revenue stream and breach the agreement. Sound a bit complicated? It is, but crowdfunding in this space is prevalent nonetheless. To get in on it, you need to know someone, and to do it intelligently, you better know what the risks are.
If you want to sit at the grownup’s table and syndicate, consult with an attorney first. There’s a reason this industry hasn’t adopted sexy labels. It isn’t like anything else.
The Growing Divide
February 28, 2014
It wasn’t too long ago that everyone in this industry knew everyone else. If not personally, then at least through their credit inquiries or UCC names. You crossed paths and acknowledged each other. It was a small world then. Today, not so much.
As the barriers to entry have remained low, the simplicity of ACH repayment has drawn in people by the thousands to become brokers, syndicates, and funders. Anyone can be any one of those three or all three at the same time. There’s still the originals out there, the guys who go to the trade shows and visit offices regularly to stay in touch. But then there’s another crowd, the newcomers that don’t file UCCs, attend shows, or interact much with everyone else. They’re funding a half million, a million, or even $5 million a month and no one really knows they exist except for their own clients. The merchant cash advance industry which was once a shadowy market in its own right now has its own shadowy sector within it.
At the Factoring 2014 conference in April, the President of Fora Financial is poised to debate the Business Development manager of Credit Cash on the subject of whether or not merchant cash advance transactions are true sales. The truth is that I have seen so many variations of funding contracts out on the street that the merits of that debate may be flawed. No one knows what a merchant cash advance is anymore. It’s a point I argued in You Can’t Ask How Big it Is Without Defining What it is in January’s issue of DailyFunder.
The industry is made up of people that deal in daily payments. How these deals are structured vary widely. Indeed there is a growing divide.
Emotions are running high in 2014 and some grievances are practically coming to blows. Stacking is as polarizing a debate as Obamacare. There are folks that believe there is no precedence for dealing with stacking, but stacking is as old as MCA.
Many years ago it was cut and dry. If one company purchased the future revenues of a small business, it was contractually impossible for a second company to buy that same block of future revenues. “How could someone else buy what has already been sold?” so the argument went…
In 2007-2008, stacking was a merchant problem, whereby small business owners would devise ways to get double or triple funded in a very short amount of time so that each company didn’t know about the other until long after the money had been wired. Much of the arguments in favor of stacking back then came from the merchants themselves who felt that MCA contracts bordered on being unlawfully restrictive because it prevented them from obtaining virtually any outside financing unless the MCA was satisfied in full. Without the capital to satisfy their entire outstanding MCA balance, they were locked into renewing with the same company indefinitely with little leverage to negotiate future terms, so the argument went…
Today, it’s the funding companies that bear the brunt of criticism from their peers for stacking, mainly because they do it willingly and are not being deceived by merchants. It is perceived as a funder problem.
In March of 2008 (a full 6 years ago), the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) established the following guidelines on the issue in their MCA white paper:
In order to effectively manage risk and prevent a merchant from becoming over-extended, merchants should not knowingly be allowed to “stack” advances (obtaining an additional advance when an outstanding balance on a previous advance exists). In the event additional advances are sought, the original advance should be paid off directly to the previous Merchant Cash Advance Company [MCAC] by the new MCAC (to ensure that the merchant does not retain funds due to the previous MCAC) with a portion of the proceeds given on the current advance.
The ETA calls for many common sense standards such as fair retrieval rates, sound underwriting, and legal collections practices. The advice is timeless and I suggest everyone read it. The industry might be growing apart but many of the fundamentals are the same.
Still, with the new crowd of near-anonymous funders, it is impossible to know what everyone’s intentions are. Given the low barriers to entry, there’s also the question as to whether or not the newcomers are legally prepared to book such deals. The industry is fraught with risks and always has been.
I just hope that as the divide grows, we are all united by a common goal, acting in the best interest of small businesses.
The Alternative Business Lending Worker Shortage
July 1, 2013“You open 40 accounts, you start working for yourself. Sky’s the limit.“
Is the dream getting harder to sell? The alternative business lending industry is booming and so much so that many job openings are going unfilled. I am asked on almost a daily basis if I know any experienced sales people that are looking for work. There really aren’t that many people out there with a strong merchant cash advance background and I think it’s impacting how fast this industry can grow. On the one hand, the industry is a lot less sophisticated than it used to be. Hold on for a second and allow me to explain myself. There was a good chunk of time in this business where saying the word, loan could get you fired. Loan?! Are you kidding? We buy future receivables at a discount!
Anyone could sell a prospect on working capital but only a select group of people could explain the purchase of future sales properly all while justifying the relatively high cost. And an even smaller group of people could take the deal to the next step and discuss the merchant’s current 3 tiered or interchange based rates, pick out the junk costs, and sell them on a better deal with a new payment processor. And an even smaller group of people could sell the merchant on the idea of using a new terminal due to PCI compliance issues or acquirer compatibility. And an even smaller group of people could sell or lease the merchant a new terminal instead of swapping out their current one or lending one for free with a multi-year contract. And still an even smaller group of people could convince the underwriter to approve their file in order for the 5 closed sales to even go through. Merchant cash advance in the traditional manner was and is a highly complicated multi-layered sale. The men and women that churn(ed) these deals out month after month on a consistent basis are nothing short of pros. Let’s not forget that payment processors have underwriters too so even after 6 closes, the payment processor could decline the approval of a merchant account, nuking the entire deal from start to finish.
Do you have any idea how comical it was when the mortgage brokers invaded the industry as the housing market neared collapse? They had no idea what they were doing and some of them barely lasted for 90 days before saying “I give up, this makes no sense.”
In today’s market, there’s a faster learning curve. I’d estimate that 55-60% of all new deals being funded with daily repayment in this country are using direct debit ACH to collect. Some funders and brokers lean towards this model so much so that they report funding more than 90% of their deals on ACH. That’s good news for new account reps because there isn’t much to learn about the product. There’s the amount being funded, the cost, and a daily debit to pay it back. Pretty simple stuff. This isn’t to say it’s not a tough sell or that it’s not competitive, because it is both of those things. Companies that swear by the ACH product have a hiring advantage because they don’t necessarily need salespeople with MCA specific experience. Almost any financial sales background will work or even no experience at all.
The smaller part of the industry is a mishmash of the old school sophisticated reps and the newbies that rely on the old schoolers to help them out with anything technical. When companies post ads saying they are looking for MCA sales reps with experience, they’re implying that they want people that can handle the multi-layer sale. A good craigslist ad should say:
Are you hungry?!
Must be able to do the following in a single phone call while driving at least 65 MPH on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway regardless of whether or not traffic is backed up:
- Convert a Micros POS system
- Lease an additional wireless terminal for off-premise sales
- Shave 12 basis points off the non-qualified tier (but make it back up by adding a $15 monthly statement fee)
- Close a 150k deal on a 1.40 (but know that the reduced factor rate is coming out of YOUR end)
- Write in a 6% closing fee
- Cut off 47 cars in traffic without hitting them
- Eat a slice of greasy pizza with your left hand without getting a single drop on your lap
Oh and below it will be a note that says “THIS POSITION IS COMMISSION BASED ONLY, NO DRAW, SELF-STARTERS WANTED, HOURS ARE 7-7 Mon-Sat“. Don’t laugh. This was the MCA industry for a time and a lot of people did very well in it. If you wanted to make money, you had to be able to do it all. For some of you, it’s still this way.
And let’s face it, the split-funding market may shrink but it will never die. Split-funding’s advantage is the ability to finance businesses that have poor cash flow. The risk of a bounced check is removed when payments are diverted to the funder by the payment processor. You hear that kids? You should be brushing up on your payment processing-ology.
Even as the ACH market boom continues, there are whispers of woe as funders deal with ACH rejects and closed bank accounts. It’s no surprise then that some companies are looking for pros, not just bodies to put on the telephone. It seems as the product has become less sophisticated, merchants have become more sophisticated. In 2007, I’d be willing to bet that more than 90% of small businesses had never even heard of a merchant cash advance and that was basically the only alternative available. In 2012 I actually did a presentation to a large room of business owners about merchant cash advance and none of them had ever heard of it until I taught them about it. That’s astounding!
Now I don’t think that many more people know about the purchase of future credit card sales in 2013 specifically, but I am inclined to believe that 90% of merchants are at least aware that alternatives to bank loans exist. And when they encounter somebody offering an alternative, they do their homework and check these companies out online. They get 2nd opinions and question why they have to switch processing when four other account reps said they don’t have to. They ask for better deals, longer programs, and they look you up on facebook to see who you really are. This is a different sales environment than what there used to be. The lowest price, the fastest process, or the most charming personality won’t guarantee you’ll win anything. Seeing that you’re backed by Wells Fargo or learning that Peter Thiel is on your company’s board of directors might be the hook, line and sinker for a business with a full plate of options at their disposal. Yes, it’s a different world, a different sale, and even a different product.
Funders and brokers need human resources to keep up with the fast pace of growth and there’s not too many of the old school guys looking for work. Not to mention that fewer people are willing to work on a 100% commission only basis these days. During and after the financial crisis, the herd of out-of-work financial service people flocked to whatever opportunity the could find. It was like you could throw a fishing net in front of the Lehman Brothers entrance and use it to scoop up 50 brokers as they all ran out the door for the last time. Newly minted graduates wanted to build their resumés instead of remaining unemployed. Some people were willing to work all 31 days of a month just for the opportunity even if they walked away with zero dollars at the end of it. Although the economy hasn’t recovered much, that hunger has relaxed and job seekers are being a bit more selective of the opportunities they choose. They want a base salary (even if small), benefits, and vacation time. Somewhere out there in another universe, Ben Affleck’s younger self is crying at the thought of this. “Vacation time?”
So when you put up an ad on LinkedIn or Craigslist and say you’re looking for 10 guys with MCA experience, just know that breed is in short supply and high demand. If you’re heavy on ACH, you can train new guys quick but they’re not going be equipped to take on the multi-layered sale if the tide turns back towards split-funding. There are tons of job openings out there for sales reps but those spots aren’t as easy to fill as they used to be.
“You become an employee of this firm, you will make your first million within three years. I’m gonna repeat that – you will make a million dollars.”
Happy hiring.
– Merchant Processing Resource.com
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MPR.mobi on iPhone, iPad, and Android
Merchant Cash Advance Competition
June 3, 2013
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me that Kabbage wasn’t a competitor in the Merchant Cash Advance space, I’d have my own funding company. It’s been argued that they only care about Ebay or Paypal and that their business model revolved around strengthening Ebay’s PowerSellers for the good of Ebay. I never really believed that was the case.
On September 11, 2012 I wrote this about Kabbage:
Some people feel that they are not a serious challenger to the status quo and that their tactics, methods, and headlines are merely shock value fodder for the rest of us to laugh at while we all rant and rave about ACH deals being the hottest thing since Square. We believe Kabbage is a company everyone should keep an eye on.
Kabbage analyzes many pieces of data in their underwriting including how many facebook fans a business has or added. And as of 2 weeks ago, what do you think happened?
Kabbage expanded their cash advance programs to brick and mortar businesses… (BusinessWeek)
And so here we are with yet another fierce well-capitalized competitor, a company that isn’t struggling to add technology but is rooted in it. Not only that, but last I heard they don’t work with brokers or agents. They cut out the middleman, much like Square did with ISOs.
Which brings me to the next few companies to keep an eye on:
Amazon: People say that their goal is to finance Amazon retailers for the good of Amazon. Sound familiar? I admit that Kabbage wasn’t owned by Paypal but there was a solid relationship there. Is it that ludicrous to think that Amazon will enter the brick and mortar cash advance business?
Groupon: They’ve been sniffing around this industry for quite a while. Keep an eye on them.
American Express: They already have their own cash advance program for premium merchants that accept a high volume of amex transactions. Every six months or so, their standards loosen. It’s only a matter of time until they have enough data to loosen their standards even more and compete head to head with the rest of the alternative business lending industry and cash advance industry.
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Scott Griest, the CEO of American Finance Solutions wrote in Disruption in the Alternative Business Lending Space that when all the dust settles in a couple years down the road, there will be only 4-5 large alternative business lenders. Consolidation and competitive pressure will thin out the herd and the strongest will prevail. The question is, will those 4-5 funding companies be the grass roots companies that propelled the industry to where it is today or will it be the big mega-corporations who are looking at our the industry like a delicious snack?
In one of the most read ever articles of MPR, I made this prediction in The End of an Era:
2014 will eliminate the weaker firms that remain and by 2015, Merchant Cash Advance will no longer be a term that anyone uses. Big banks and billion dollar technology companies will go on to rebrand all that which the funding warriors of the last decade have worked so hard to establish. MCA will simply assimilate into other financial products. The metaphorical Sally, Joe, and Tom will probably still be in the business, but be working for companies like Capital One, Wells Fargo, and American Express.
We weren’t kidding…
Follow us at the ETA Expo
April 30, 2013May 3, 1:00am: I underestimated how easy it would be to make frequent updates. Wednesday was fantastic. I uploaded a couple dozen photos and updates all at once earlier today over on DailyFunder. As soon as the show was over, I found myself on Bourbon Street at the Discover party followed by the Priority Payments party. Both were a great time.
My Recap of the show is up now: ETA Expo Recap
Soul Mates: Merchant Cash Advance and Silicon Valley VCs
Original story about On Deck Capital’s investment from Google Ventures and Peter Thiel
My theory on why On Deck Capital took a paltry $17 million from Google Ventures and Peter Thiel
Photos and updates from the ETA
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May 1, 1:00am: Great start to the show this evening. Merchant Cash Advance providers and alternative business lenders continue to have a very strong presence in the payments industry. The booths I saw include: RetailCapital, NextWave Funding, Merchant Cash Group, On Deck Capital, Capital Access Network, Strategic Funding Source, American Finance Solutions, Swift Capital, MotherFund, and Principis Capital. GRP Funding and Paramount Merchant Funding are also on the exhibitor list but I didn’t spot their booths yet. That’s pretty substantial and it omits the major presence of Merchant Cash Advance companies that aren’t exhibiting. I bumped into Merchant Cash and Capital and walked the floor a bit with David Rubin of Capital Stack.
I met the guys behind Super G Funding which lends money against residuals. They’re great guys and they have such a unique role in the industry.
I think every funder I spoke with was quick to mention that they do 12 month deals and either offer direct debit repayment or will have it soon. The ACH train has disrupted the split-funding market pretty severely though many funders continue to do big numbers via split.
Nobody seemed to have an appetite for low FICO score deals (500s and below) except for Merchant Cash Group and Capital Stack which target the higher risk market intentionally. And when I say “don’t have an appetite for,” I literally mean when asking a funder if they do below 500 credit, the answer is some version of “HECK NO!!”
Overall tone, and perhaps its because opening night included open bar, but it was very optimistic. Most funders seemed intent on expanding and are eager to service as much business as possible. I definitely get that sense that there is a real focus these days on the bigger fish ISOs ($1 million+ in referral business a month). When newbie brokers enter the space, funders spend an enormous amount of resources developing them and many times they just don’t pan out. Either the brokers don’t have the capacity to do more than a handful of deals, or they just don’t “get it.”
If you’re a mom and pop ISO and you have just 1 or 2 deals a month, it’s more difficult these days to get time and attention from a funder. Capital is flooding into the industry and everybody wants partners that can produce volume. From a resource standpoint, the “1 and done” reps are not an efficient use of time.
Big ISOs have a lot of negotiating power at their disposal these days. In the last 7 years, it was good to be an ISO, then hard to be an ISO and now it’s good again. Many things in MCA have a weird way of going full circle. Hope to see you on Wednesday.
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Apr 30, 1:00am: 
Merchant Processing Resource will be publishing updates as often as we can from the ETA Expo in New Orleans. I am very excited to be down here. Earlier today I had the opportunity to eat beignets at Cafe Du Monde, visit the French Market District, and take a ride on the Natchez Steamboat on the Mississippi River. But starting Tuesday, it’s all business. A schedule of events can be found on the ETA’s website.
You can follow along with everyone else in town on twitter using #ETAExpo2013 or #ETAExpo13
and of course via the DailyFunder Merchant Cash Advance iPhone App.
Some pre-conference tweets:
ETA Expo 2013 on Twitter
pre-conference tweets
Storified by Sean M· Mon, Apr 29 2013 22:21:50
Here’s to learning, networking, and having fun!
– Merchant Processing Resource
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Factoring Construction Deals: It’s not impossible
April 18, 2013
Being my first post in the Small Business Corner, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Steve Ontiveros and I’m the founder of The Factoring Place. I’m good at finding the right factoring company for my clients based on their unique situations. Factoring and MCA really aren’t that different. Each company seeking a merchant cash advance is unique, like each factoring client is unique. Not all merchant cash advance companies are alike, and similarly not all factoring companies offer the same program & factoring rate. I became a factoring broker because I wanted to make sure my clients were getting the very best factoring deal for their unique situation.
Many factors lack the c-c-c-courage needed to fund a construction deal. Preliminary & Mechanic’s Liens, Payment & Performance Bonds, Progress Billing, and Retention, OH MY! Follow me along the “Yellow Brick Road” to mitigate the common risks of factoring construction deals.y factoring and merchant cash advance brokers turn down or walk away from construction companies seeking working capital. Factoring construction companies is a niche within a niche. As a broker, understanding the inherent risks of construction factoring can help you find the right factoring firm that will successfully fund your client. Understanding how each factoring company operates is also important to knowing whether or not your client will get funded.
Actually, you don’t have to live in the fantasy world of “Oz” to successfully navigate the unique risks found in a typical construction deal. When you peel back the curtain inside the “Emerald City Factoring Company,” you’ll find that there are no wizards or wizardry going on at all. But for this article, I’ll be your Emerald City Factoring Company Wizard. I’ll help you understand construction factoring giving you the confidence to walk the walk and get your construction client funded.
Construction Factoring 101: Preliminary Lien Notice & Mechanic’s Liens
A Preliminary Lien Notice is a formal document sent by the contractor, sub contractor, material supplier, equipment lessor – and factoring company in some cases– to the owner of the project. This “pre-lien” establishes the right to file a mechanic’s lien later on down the road. If the pre-lien is sent and the claimant’s bill is paid, the pre-lien has no further legal effect. However, if the bill is not paid then the claimant may now file a mechanic’s lien on the owner’s property. An active mechanic’s lien on a property ties that property up, leaving it in a position such that it cannot be sold or transferred to another party until the mechanic’s lien is released. Roughly 40 states in the US require a preliminary lien to be present before a mechanic’s lien can be enforced–check the laws in your state to see where you stand.
The Emerald City Factoring Company often requires its construction clients to provide evidence of a pre-lien being sent to everyone up the food chain, including the owners. In fact, Emerald City Factoring Company has been known to file a pre-lien of its own to further protect its position. True, Emerald City Factoring Company is not a contractor, supplier, or equipment lessor. But, because Emerald City Factoring Company has a blanket UCC1 on all assets of the client, the factor is indeed a supplier of material and equipment on the job. Even if the General Contractor argues a factoring company has no legal standing to file a pre-lien, the owner doesn’t care. The owner will simply tell the General Contractor to ensure all invoices are paid to all subcontractors so that the factoring company’s pre-lien won’t magically turn into a mechanic’s lien. Having the pre-lien in place allows the Emerald City Factoring Company to file a mechanic’s lien if payment is not made, which means the Wizards running the show can sleep well at night.
Construction Factoring 102: Payment & Performance Bonds
Performance bonds are used in the construction industry as a tool for the owner of the property being developed to guarantee that the value of the work will not be lost in the case of an unfortunate event (such as insolvency of the contractor.) A payment bond guarantees that the contractor will pay the labor and material costs they are obligated to. Shoddy work, sub-standard materials, and corner-cutting put Emerald City Factor’s factored invoices at risk, because if the owner throws your client off the job, the bonding company can step in and finish the job – and then back charges your factoring client. It’s unlikely that a bonding company will subordinate to the factoring company, and thus the factor’s lien on the receivables may be primed by the big bad bonding company.
So, how do you prevent the Wicked Witch of the West coming through to spoil the party, kick your contractor off the job, and call in the bonding company to clean up the mess? Unlike Dorothy, clicking your heels and repeating “there’s no place like home” won’t prevent the damage done by that under-performing contractor factoring client of yours.
Invite “Captain Obvious” to work for the Emerald City Factoring Company. He’s the guy that usually shows up after the disaster struck, and is rich with advice on what you should have done. These are usually “DUH” moments but, in retrospect, they were so obvious and simple that you may have over looked them. Here’s what Captain Obvious has taught us over the years:
- Have your contractor client share the bid file with you. Go over each scope with a fine tooth comb. Ask the contractor to tell you what % gross profit was built into each unique scope. Use common sense to work out where the estimate may be wildly optimistic. Is there enough gross profit in the estimate for them to have “oh crap” room? More importantly, is there enough room in the estimate to cover the costs of your factoring services?
- Ask about the job costing engine that the contractor is using. Are they plugging in the job budget before the job starts, and then recording costs against the original budget? Ask the contractor how long it takes for their AP accounting staff to enter job costs against each job. The costs need to get added to the job cost engine almost immediately after they are incurred.
- Ask to be shown a copy of a recent “over/under” billing report. This report will show whether or not the job is hemorrhaging cash as the job is happening. If the job is over-billed, the contractor is in a strong cash position on the job. If it’s under billed, it means the contractor has spent more on the job than they have yet to bill. Running jobs under billed for too long is probably what brought the contractor to you in the first place, so don’t be surprised to see this – just monitor it so that you know just how bad the situation might be.
- If your contractor’s eyes gloss over when you ask them about job budgets and job costing and over / under billing, then you might have a different sort of problem on your hand. Without these tools in place, the contractor will have a tough time knowing whether or not he’s profitable and whether or not he has the longevity to complete the job. Yes, even with factoring company in place, there’s no avoiding disaster when working with a contractor who doesn’t watch his budgets.
- Get a hard hat and a vest with fashionable fluorescent reflective tape. Travel to the job site at least once a week to make sure progress is being made and to be visible to your client. You’re in luck if you have a pick-up truck and even better if you have a pick-up truck with a diesel fuel tank in the bed. This way you can top off the heavy equipment on the job site so that they’re ready for a full day’s use tomorrow!
- While at the job site, cozy up to the project manager / superintendent that is in charge of your client’s performance. He’s usually the person who will approve or deny the progress billing requests. Be up-front with him and tell him that you’re the “money guy” behind your client. Ask the project manager regularly about progress on the project. Are there dicey issues that you can take up with your client to make the job run smoothly?
- Be the guy that a) brings the donuts and coffee into the planning meetings and b) has a cooler full of sodas and snacks for the laborers. Develop relationships with people on the job. Not only are you looking after your investment, but you’re sure to get “insider” information about the performance of your client. Another added benefit to being on the job site consistently? More clients. As you’re talking with the project manager, it’ll be no secret what you do. I can’t tell you how many clients Emerald City Factors has earned as a result of job-site schmoozing.
- Most of all, be useful on the job site, and then get out of there. Bring lunch to the trades people. Ask your questions. Get invoice approvals. Find out when the city / county inspector is coming to inspect your client’s work (and be there for those inspections!) Do no harm.
- Require that your contractor provide you with weekly job cost reports. Measure the actual job costs against the original job budgets. If you start to see a budget getting to the end of its life, investigate. Find out if there are change orders that you don’t know about. Maybe it’s just job cost entry errors (costs being tagged to the wrong element of the job). Don’t accept your client’s word for it when he tells you “I’m on time and under budget.” Expect that he’s not, and verify with proof in the job cost / budget reports.
Construction Factoring 103: Progress Billing & Retention
The c-c-c-cowardly Lion will tell you that the contractual ability to off-set the cost of defects or repairs against previously approved billings is what prevents him from getting into the construction factoring game. In other words, the Lion is afraid that even after the general contractor approves an invoice, somehow he or she can still legally refuse to pay any or all of the approved invoice. This is typically when retention comes into play. Retention is a process by which the general contractor will hold back usually 10% of a progress payment. This 10% is not paid to the contractor until the end of the job, when all the punch list items are completed, and when the owner is satisfied with the material and workmanship. Think of it as a “reserve” account of sorts.
Be sure you understand that a progress billing invoice may have retention – if so, don’t advance against the full value of the invoice. Gauge your advance based on the invoice amount AFTER retention is taken out. Don’t fund unless and until you get the general contractor to physically sign your approval letter. Put language on your approval letter that says something to the effect of: “Invoice approved without offsets or deductions” and then pray that you don’t ever have to defend that language – a costly adventure in the American Justice System!
Construction Factoring 104: Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Emerald City Factoring Company is located in the Heart of Oz. Let’s say that your construction client’s project is all the way over in Kansas, so there is no chance that you or your wizard staff can visit the job site to protect your investment and market to others on the site. In that case contract with a broker, or a construction manager, to visit the site on your behalf. Get some eyes and ears on the ground at the job site, and be sure to review the budgets and job cost reports on a regular basis. If you want to get really creative, partner up with a bookkeeper who is local to the construction client and job site. Ask that your construction client consider using a chosen bookkeeper who knows how to manage construction job costing and billing. You’ll be singing the praises of Glinda, the Good Bookkeeping Witch of the North before you can say “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
The c-c-c-cowardly Lion gets Courage
It’s always easier to get something done when you have a little bit of experience. Dorothy didn’t get home without taking a few calculated risks. Consider funding a small deal, perhaps a spot factor on a small project will give you some practice but won’t cause you to lose sleep. You can learn the lingo of the contractor (and flatter your client) by asking questions about the business. Or, consider working with non-competing factoring company who does construction and let them teach you the ropes.
Just watch, before long you’ll be chanting in your sleep: “There’s no factoring like construction factoring…”
Steve Ontiveros is the founder and president of The Factoring Place, Inc. a privately held full service factoring brokerage firm specializing in construction factoring deals (including progress billing.) He can be reached at steve@thefactoringplace.com or 510.223.1285
