#350
Kabbage With No Baggage

Amex acquires SoftBank-backed Kabbage after tough 2020 for the SMB lender - Amex says it has “millions” of small business customers and the addition of Kabbage's loan and other financial services tools signifies that it plans to double down on that sector with a much wider range of offerings. The acquisition comes at a tricky time not just for SMBs but also the fintech companies that serve them, and specifically for Kabbage itself, with all of them weathering the storms of COVID-19. Read more

Online loans defy fears of mass delinquencies - According to a recent report from the data provider dv01, impaired marketplace loans — those that have fallen behind on payments or accepted payment forbearance — are 9.7 percent of the total, up from about 6 percent before the crisis began. That is down from a peak of 16 percent in April, and the impairment rate has continued to decline through the early weeks of August. Read more

Fintech lenders: marketplace of hope - The years after the last global financial crisis proved the perfect era to launch a US online fintech lender. The concept remains resilient. Whether a pure start-up can flourish is another matter as these lenders have struggled for years with high operating costs and scant profits. Read more

How 'buy now, pay later' became a coronavirus counter to credit cards - Traditional BNPL loans from main street banks have relatively been concentrated in installment lending at POS for large ticket, in-store purchases such as furniture, with little coverage of e-commerce merchants. In contrast, PayPal Credit (formerly BillMeLater) Affirm, Afterpay and others were largely born in the e-commerce channel and have begun to migrate to the in-store channel. Read more

Why OnDeck is being sold on the cheap - The 14-year-old company struggled to meet the expectations that accompanied its 2014 initial public offering, recording $94.5m in losses in its first two years as a public company. Cost-cutting eventually brought modest profitability, but investors were seeking margins more in line with those generated in the tech sector. Read more