Posted By 
By David Gens, founder and CEO of Merchant Advance Capital
Special to the Financial Independence Hub
The small business lending landscape today bears little resemblance — functionally, structurally or in terms of customer priorities — to what it was at the moment of the 2008 financial crisis. The intervening years have seen the creation of many new alternative finance companies, who are able to efficiently deliver credit by leveraging technology. Here’s how these developments affect the range of choices among your borrowing options.
Online lending growth consistent, lenders gain trust
Conventionally, a small business owner would attempt to reach out to a major bank for financing: a process that has become less and less viable as banks become less willing to accept the risk of lending to new businesses with limited credit profiles and limited hard assets with which to secure a loan.
Today, online small-business loans from alternative lenders account for about 2% of all small-business loans despite their ability to offer more tenable and accessible financing agreements for SMB owners. Growth, however, is a solid prediction for the industry: loans from the same providers are expected to comprise 16% of the total small business loan volume by 2020, according to a 2015 report by Morgan Stanley.
Consumers and businesses now have alternative financing options outside of traditional banking – moreover, these alternatives have gathered increasing mainstream relevance and investor confidence, moving beyond the high-risk/high speed niche to which they were originally confined.
Access to capital a key motivator
Posted By 
