CHALLENGES FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

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Small Business Owners are Time and Resource Constrained

We believe that small business owners lack many of the resources available to larger businesses and have fewer staff on which to rely for critical business issues. According to a survey by eVoice, time is viewed as the most valuable asset to small business owners. Small businesses typically do not employ a financial staff or internal advisors, and small business owners often act as both manager and employee. According to the same survey, 90% of small business owners perform three or more employee roles in any given day. Time spent inefficiently may mean lost sales, extra expenses and personal sacrifices.

Traditional Lending is Not Geared Towards Small Businesses

Traditional lenders do not meet the needs of small businesses for a number of reasons, including the following:

 

  • Time Consuming Process. According to a Harvard Business School study, the traditional borrowing process includes application forms which are time consuming to assemble and complete, long in-person meetings during business hours and manual procedures that delay decisions. Small businesses surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicated that the traditional funding process required them, on average, to dedicate 33 hours, contact 2.7 financial institutions and submit 3 loan applications.

 

  • Non-Tailored Credit Assessment. There is no widely-accepted credit score for small businesses. Traditional lenders frequently rely upon the small business owner’s personal credit as a primary indicator of the business’s creditworthiness, even though it is not necessarily indicative of the business’s credit profile. As a result, a creditworthy business may be denied funding or offered a product that fits poorly with its needs.

 

  • Product Mismatch. According to Oliver Wyman, small businesses often seek small loans and evaluate their investment opportunities on a “dollars in, dollars out” basis, since the payback period is short. According to survey data reported by Oliver Wyman, 75% of small businesses are looking to borrow less than $50,000. Small businesses often seek small, short-term loans to fund short-term projects and investments, but are met with traditional loan products that feature large loan sizes, longer durations and rigid collateral requirements that are not well suited to their needs.

Alternatives to Traditional Bank Loans are Inadequate

Small businesses whose lending needs are not met by traditional bank loans have historically resorted to a fragmented landscape of products, including merchant cash advances, credit cards, receivables factoring, equipment leases and home equity lines, each of which comes with its own challenges and limitations. Merchant cash advances are expensive and limited to certain industries. Credit cards are pervasive but cannot be used for certain types of expenses and face limitations on size. Equipment leasing and receivables factoring both have a cumbersome application process and are only appropriate for specific use cases. Home equity lines have strict collateral requirements, are unappealing to business owners on a personal level and are challenging for businesses with multiple owners.

INDUSTRY BACKGROUND AND TRENDS

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Small Businesses are an Enormous Driver of the U.S. Economy
The growth and prosperity of small businesses are vital to the success of the U.S. economy and essential to the strength of local communities. According to the most recent data available from the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 28 million small businesses in the United States. These small businesses contribute approximately 45% of U.S. non-agricultural gross domestic product and employ approximately 50% of the private workforce. Small businesses help build vibrant communities with local character and help support the growth of local economies. According to Civic Economics, spending at local retailers and restaurants contributes to the local community on average more than double the amount per dollar spent compared to spending at national chains.

Small Businesses are Unique and Difficult to Assess
Small businesses are a diverse group spanning many different industries, stages in development, geographies, financial profiles and operating histories, historically making it difficult to assess creditworthiness in a uniform manner, and there is no widely-accepted credit score for small businesses. For example, a restaurant has a very different operating and financial profile from a retail store and both are very different from a doctor’s office. Credit assessment is inherently difficult because small business data is constantly changing as the business evolves and is scattered across a myriad of online and offline sources, unlike consumer credit assessment where a lender can generally look to scores provided by consumer credit bureaus. Small business data includes financial data, credit data, government and public records, transactional data, online social data, accounting data and behavioral data. While much of this data is rapidly moving online, certain data remains predominantly offline. In addition, small businesses are not consistently covered by traditional credit bureaus. Once obtained, the data needs to be cleansed, normalized, weighted and analyzed to be useful in the credit scoring decision.

Small Businesses are Not Adequately Served by Traditional Lenders
We believe traditional lenders face a number of challenges and limitations that make it difficult to address the capital needs of small businesses, such as:

•    Organizational and Structural Challenges. The costly combination of physical branches and manually intensive underwriting procedures makes it difficult for traditional lenders to efficiently serve small businesses. They also serve a broad set of customers, including both consumers and enterprises, and are not solely focused on addressing the needs of small businesses.

•    Technology Limitations. Many traditional lenders use legacy or third-party systems that are difficult to integrate or adapt to the shifting needs of small businesses. These technology limitations make it challenging for traditional lenders to aggregate new data sources, leverage advanced analytics and streamline and automate credit decisions and funding.

•    Loan Products are not Designed for Small Businesses. Small businesses are not well served by traditional loan products. We believe that traditional lenders often offer products characterized by larger loan sizes, longer durations and rigid collateral requirements. By contrast, small businesses often seek small loans for short-term investments.

As a result, we believe that small businesses feel underserved by traditional lenders. According to the FDIC, the percentage of commercial and industrial loans with a balance less than $250,000 has declined from 20% of total dollars borrowed in 2004 to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2014. According to Oliver Wyman, 75% of small businesses are looking to borrow less than $50,000. In addition, according to the first quarter 2015 Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, only 34% of small businesses reported that obtaining credit was easy.

Other Credit Products Have Significant Limitations

Certain additional products, including widely available business credit cards, provide small businesses with access to capital but may not be designed for their borrowing needs. For example, business credit cards may not have sufficient credit limits to handle the needs of the small business, particularly in the case of large, one-time projects such as capital improvements or expanding to a new location. In addition, certain business opportunities, such as discounts for paying with cash, and certain business expenses, such as payroll, rent or equipment leases, may not be payable with credit cards. Business credit cards are also typically not designed to fund many small business working capital needs.