Market Woes Affecting Online Lenders

11:54 08 January in Blog

There’s a great deal of uncertainty in the market right now. The Fed has already increased their target short-term rate from 0.25% to 0.5%, and they’re planning on increasing it incrementally throughout 2016. In recent years, online platforms like LendingClub Corp. and Prosper Marketplace, Inc. have challenged banks’ hegemony in the lending industry. Today, we’ll discuss how the rate hike and other developments have had a negative effect on online lending platforms and ask whether or not they’re here to stay.

Online Lenders Arrive on the Field

Online lenders find borrowers and sell their loans to investors. Using comparably low operating costs and working with investors with low yield expectations, they’ve had considerable success. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of securities filings, marketplace loan funds raised $8 billion in 2015, over six times the amount raised the year before. Recent market woes are pinching the numbers, however, and putting online lenders’ niche at risk.

Online Lenders Forced to Raise Rates

Funding for consumer loans has started to show signs of damage. Among the recent ills are delayed deals, increased funding costs, and declining prices for securities backed by the loans. Many online lenders will require borrowers to pay higher borrowing costs. LendingClub Corp., for example, raised their interest rates by 0.25%, matching the increase by the Federal Reserve in their short-term rate. Citigroup Inc., which has sold over $1 billion in loans from Prosper, is now offering higher and higher yields to entice investors to buy. The end result will either be rising costs for borrowers or diminishing margins for investors and the lending platforms they work with.

Growth of Online Marketplace Lending in Doubt

The volume of loans made by online platforms like Prosper and LendingClub have surged in recent years, and investment vehicles that buy marketplace loans have grown as well. Now, experts are wondering if the growth will continue. In October, Stockholm-listed P2P lender TrustBuddy collapsed after serious misuse of client money. Poor stock performance by several major U.S. platforms is another cause for concern in the industry—as is the pullback of credit that has forced some high yield mutual funds to halt or close redemptions. In the end, it remains to be seen whether the recent poor performance by online lenders is an aberration, or something here to stay.

Financing with Capstone

Capstone uses unique underwriting strategies to provide accounts receivable invoice factoring, PO financing, and trade finance to small businesses, subcontractors, licensees, and distributors. For more information, please visit our homepage.

Bank Loan or Invoice Finance: What’s Best for You?

21:53 04 September in Blog

Here is the situation: unexpectedly, you receive a huge product or service order. Besides the huge profit you’ll net by filling the order, you’ll also be establishing a business relationship with a desirable client. There’s just one problem: you don’t have the funds to buy the materials or pay your workers to complete the order!

Do You Really Need a Loan?

It’s in situations like this that business owners don’t hesitate. Nobody likes the notion of going into debt, but small business owners know that it’s part of the formula for success. The order is more important to the business’s future than going into debt. Taking calculated risk is what sets them apart from less enterprising individuals. The question is, should you get a bank loan or a get funding from personal invoice financing?

Bank loans are probably more common, but that doesn’t make them better. Until recently, taxis were the only way to get from point A to point B if you didn’t have a car, and hotels and motels were the only place to stay if you were in from out of town. There was a need in the market for alternatives, and Uber and Airbnb filled the niches. The same is true with single invoice finance.

Though bank loans are more common, single invoice finance offers some distinct advantages that you should know before making your decision.

Advantages of Single Invoice Finance

• Receive funding immediately
• Bank loans can take several weeks for approval, whereas single invoice finance can get you funds within 24 hours.
• Repayment is made by your customer
• Less paperwork
• Use only the invoice you are factoring for collateral
• Fewer fees
• Your credit is not important, your customer’s credit is important
• Once your customer pays the invoice, the contract is terminated.
• Won’t show on your balance sheet

Selling an invoice is selling money that technically belongs to you. It’s your asset, and therefore it doesn’t have to be noted on your balance sheet.

Get in touch with Capstone Capital Group and get in the game with factoring, funding, and financing. For more industry insights, read our previous blogs.

Will Repealing Dodd-Frank Make Borrowing Easier - explained by Capstone

How the Dodd-Frank “Too Big to Fail” Legislation Hurts Small Banks

21:28 16 March in Blog

We have written numerous times about how the Dodd-Frank “Too Big to Fail” legislation is hurting smaller banks and interfering with loan approval for your small and medium-sized businesses.

Much of the regulation was designed to stop large money-center banks from taking depositor’s money and executing risky investments or engaging in risky transactions, which would thereby place the public at risk as well as the US financial system.

However, the unintended consequence of the law has created significant regulatory pressure on small and medium-sized banks, which has caused the regulators to take a one-size-fits-all approach to bank regulating. We can all agree the risks facing small and medium-sized banks are different than those facing the large money-center banks.

Compliance costs alone eat into the profits of the smaller banks, whose scale is smaller and has less profit than more major banks. The portfolios of the smaller banks are vastly different than those of larger banks as well. Most small banks lend into their communities and can assess the economy and risk related to their portfolio first-hand. This is not possible for the larger banks, as their footprint spans either a region of the US or the entire US. This leads to centralized decision- making with computer aided modeling to ensure that the loans are underwritten as conservatively as possible. Though not a negative thing, it’s different from how smaller banks are chartered to operate.

In most cases, the three “C’s” are used in small bank lending because the small town banker knows his customer. Credit, Character, and Collateral are what the small town banker relies on. Federal regulations do not see it the same way, causing conflicts between operation and management. The best way to manage it is to reduce the amount of loans and use the most rigid standards, which do not help the community that these smaller banks are chartered to help.

Congress has been listing to these smaller banks and indicated they would enact legislation to reduce the regulatory burden so they could operate like they should. It is important to note that very few smaller banks were affected by the financial crisis. The Republicans are attempting to provide relief for smaller banks while Democrats require that all of the Dodd-Frank provisions be in place for every bank regardless of size.

The Fed supports the changes for small and regional banks. However, it does not seem that these smaller institutions will be released from the “Too Big to Fail” category any time soon. As the economy continues to grow, and your need for working capital increases, please remember to call or email Capstone Capital Group, LLC at (212) 755-3636 or [email protected]

Recovery is Slow for Small Business Lending

17:46 21 August in Blog

While the economy slogs along at a snail’s pace and businesses of all sizes continue to persevere, banks remain steadfast in reigning back loans for small businesses. Even though loans to small businesses were up 1% from last September, they are still 18% less than what they were in 2008 according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Traditionally, small businesses were able to obtain necessary working capital loans through small local banks. For decades, local business owners sat down with bank executives and built relationships that were beneficial for both the bank and the business. However, since the housing bust in 2007 which caused numerous bank failures, many of the surviving banks have changed their underwriting practices and have literally converted loan approvals into a checklist. Relationship lending is virtually gone now and small business owners have had to consider alternate forms of financing to maintain their livelihood.

Some business owners have tapped into their savings or retirement plans, mortgaged their homes, asked money from family and friends, and some have even turned to high cost, short term loans to keep their entrepreneurial hopes alive for just a little bit longer. While a majority of these borrowers have good credit and more than two years history of being in business, local bank failures over the past few years and the Dodd Frank to big to fail bank legislation have caused the remaining banks to shy away from small business funding. Instead of developing the necessary expertise to handle small businesses accounts, they instead choose to penalize small businesses by showing them the door.

Although some small business owners have found it difficult to obtain the necessary capital they need to maintain and grow their businesses from their local bank, options do exist. Fortunately, Capstone Capital Group, LLC has the solution.

Capstone Capital Group, LLC has been helping small to mid-sized businesses for years obtain the necessary working capital they need to sustain and grow during uncertain economic times without all the red tape you normally get a bank. Capstone Capital Group, LLC specializes in Single Invoice Factoring (“Spot Factoring”) for firms in need of immediate cash. Spot Factoring provides flexible, no contract invoice selling in exchange for working capital from Capstone Capital Group. Call Capstone at (212) 755-3636 and speak with a representative today.

Regulators Remain Unconvinced of Big Bank’s Ability to Safely Wind Down in a Financial Crisis

19:14 15 August in Blog

As part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulatory scheme, banks are required to submit an annual “living will” detailing, among other things, the bank’s operations and exposures, in addition to a plan of how the bank could be dismantled without relying on tax payer funded support in the event they reach a point of potential failure during a financial crisis.

After a review by the Federal Reserve (the Feds) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) of recently submitted bankruptcy plans of eleven of the nation’s largest banking institutions, the Feds and the FDIC chastised the plans as being “unrealistic or inadequately supported” and that the plans “fail to make, or even identify the kinds of changes in firm structure and practices that would be necessary to enhance the prospect for an orderly failure.”

Regulators set a time frame for these banks to address the apparent deficiencies in their plans by July 2015 or face tougher capital requirements, growth restrictions, and even go so far as to break up the bank if they are unable to make significant progress.

In order to avoid harsher rules and possible dismantling, regulators say banks can take steps to make their bankruptcy plans by establishing a rational and less complex legal structure, essentially showing they can quickly produce reliable information about their exposures, and amending derivatives contracts to make them easier to bring through bankruptcy.

These actions by regulators gives a clear sign they believe that banks aren’t doing enough to insulate themselves and protect the tax payer in the event of a future financial crisis. With increased regulation and scrutiny looming over the banking industry, which isn’t likely to ease up any time soon, banks are feeling the pressure to restrain growth by curbing lending practices.

Some borrowers, like small business owners, may have a more difficult time obtaining the necessary financing they need to maintain and grow their business. Unfortunately, the focus on unwinding banks and compliance with regulations takes away resources that can be used to help finance small businesses. Capstone Capital Group, LLC has funding solutions that can get you the financing the big banks can’t provide.

Capstone Capital Group, LLC has been helping small to mid-sized businesses for years obtain the necessary working capital they need to sustain and grow during uncertain economic times without all the red tape you normally get from most banks. Capstone Capital Group, LLC specializes in Business finding solutions, Single Invoice Factoring (“Spot Factoring”) for firms in need of immediate cash. Spot Factoring provides flexible, no contract invoice selling in exchange for working capital from Capstone Capital Group.

Download: Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act – Contract Opportunities and Funding Analysis

Capstone wants your business to take full advantage of the opportunities (or use projects) available through the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act recently signed into law.