Signature Bank Partners with trueDigital
December 4, 2018
Today, Signature Bank unveiled a proprietary digital payments platform for its commercial clients, according to a statement released by the bank. The platform, called Signet, is designed to allow Signature Bank’s commercial clients to make real-time payments in U.S. dollars, every hour of the year.
“The ability to transmit funds between approved, fully vetted commercial clients of the bank at all times is very valuable, especially in light of the increasing speed and frequency at which they conduct their business,” said Joseph J. DePaolo, President and Chief Executive Officer at Signature Bank. “Signature Bank has made a commitment to invest in its technology infrastructure, and the Signet Platform is indicative of this investment,”
This commitment by a bank to embrace technology is consistent with other banks of late. Chase and PNC have partnered with OnDeck’s ODX to streamline their online lending processes and other banks have partnered with fintechs recently as well.
“The partnership between trueDigital and Signature Bank will quickly prove to be extremely beneficial and revolutionary for clients globally as they will now be afforded the opportunity to make instantaneous USD payments to one another in real-time at no cost per transaction,” said Sunil Hirani, Founder of trueDigital.
The new Signet platform uses blockchain technology and can be used to make payments across a wide variety of industries, initially focusing on power, shipping, real estate, auto and digital assets where costs, delays, operational risks and counter-party risks are significant, according to a trueDigital statement.
The platform is not designed for a very small company as transactions made on the Signet platform require a minimum account balance of $250,000. Also, the companies exchanging money must both have an account at Signature Bank.
The New York State Department of Financial Services has approved the Signet platform and deposits held on the platform are eligible for FDIC insurance, up to the legal insurable amounts defined by the FDIC.
Signature Bank is a New York-based full-service commercial bank with 30 private client offices throughout the New York metropolitan area. This year, the bank opened a full-service private client banking office in San Francisco. Signature Bank’s specialty finance subsidiary, Signature Financial, LLC, provides equipment finance and leasing. trueDigital is a New York-based fintech company that provides solutions to financial markets by utilizing blockchain-based technologies.
Bankers Healthcare Group Expands Beyond Healthcare
November 20, 2018Bankers Healthcare Group (BHG), which provides financing solutions to healthcare professionals, announced at the end of last week that it is expanding into small business lending with a new license to offer SBA loans through its wholly-owned subsidiary, FundEx Solutions Group. Fundex is now one of only 14 non-bank lenders in the country that offers an SBA 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program, according to the company.
“We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve earned licensure as a non-bank SBA lender,” said Mark Schmidt, CEO of FundEx. “Not only is this a great opportunity for the BHG brand to grow, but it’s a terrific new option for customers who may require loan amounts or terms that are not available through BHG in order to accomplish their business goals.”
BHG, through FundEx, will now be able to provide SBA-backed loans to licensed professions in a variety of sectors including accounting, architecture, law, engineering, financial services and insurance. Loans will go up to $5 million, with terms of up to 25 years. And the loans may be used for a number of different purposes, including real estate acquisition, renovation or expansion, purchase of equipment, business acquisition or commercial debt consolidation.
“There’s market demand for larger loans and we’re excited to offer another innovative lending solution to help licensed professionals grow their own businesses,” said Al Crawford, the original founder, Chairman and CEO of BHC. “We built FundEx Solutions Group based on our tenured success in medical financing to be flexible and fast with excellent customer service.”
Founded in 2001, BHG, based in Syracuse, New York, has provided more than $3.5 billion in funding to to over 110,000 healthcare professionals.
Selling a Home, Selling Commercial Financing – What’s the Difference?
November 16, 2018
Alternative funding brokers come from all different backgrounds, but for many them, being a broker is not their first job in sales. Some sold equipment, some sold cars and others sold homes. They were realtors. AltFinanceDaily found two alternative funding brokers with a background in residential real estate and we asked them to compare the similarities and differences between selling a home and selling money.
Alex Alpert is the owner and CEO of Philadelphia-based Solomon Commercial Lending, which provides clients with a wide variety of funding from SBA loans, equipment leasing, factoring and some MCA. Before starting his company, he had worked as a residential realtor for about five years. When asked about his approach to selling a home versus selling money, he sees them as very different.
“When I consider non-investment home ownership, it is 100% emotional,” Alpert said. “If you think about it, the most expensive and most intimate and emotional purchase that you’re ever going to make is going to be your home. As people, we pour ourselves into our homes. Our homes speak so much about our personalities – what we like, what we don’t. It’s literally like a biography [of someone.]”
Alpert spoke about the intangibles involved in residential real estate, how a lot of it is about the feel of a home, which is highly subjective.
“Instead of you manipulating what they want, it’s just guiding them to reach that ‘ah-ha’ moment,” Alpert said. “I didn’t walk around the house with them and say ‘This is the bedroom and this is the bathroom.’ I would stay back and just say ‘Take a walk around, see how it fits, jump in the bed if you want to, and see how you feel.’ And when they came back down, one of my common first questions would be, ‘Can you picture yourself living here?’ Because that question makes you visualize yourself waking up there. If you can pick up on what the person is showing at that moment, you can guide them better…I think I’m successful because I’m honest, I’m transparent, and I will tell you things you won’t expect. And at the end of the day, that’s how you build referrals and address the needs of an emotional transaction.”
On the other hand, Alpert sees non-primary home deals as more transactional.
“When it comes to business, it’s much less personal,” Alpert said. “People will certainly do their research on who they engage with. Most all of my business comes from referrals. But still, you don’t know me from Adam, and you’re sending me over everything…With [business transactions,] it’s based on need and your ability to serve that need. The emotional part, just from the start, is not that present. It’s a need and solution type of approach.”
Alpert will work with clients with tens of millions of dollars in revenue. But he acknowledged that for some of his smaller “mom and pop shop” clients, transactions can be emotional, like with a small town dance studio client he is helping to secure a 7(a) SBA loan for.
James Celifarco, President of Horizon Financial Group in Brooklyn, which offers mostly small business loans and MCA, currently works as a realtor as well. He doesn’t see much of a difference in the way he approaches residential real estate clients versus small business merchants.
“I think they’re very similar in that if [people] are buying or selling a home, it’s their most coveted possession,” Celifarco said. “It’s what they’ve worked the hardest to obtain. It’s their biggest asset. And it’s the same thing when dealing with a business owner. Business owners are probably more passionate than a homeowner. Either way, if you’re dealing with a business owner or a homeowner, it’s their prized possession.”
While not using the word “emotional,” Celifarco seemed to suggest that non-residential real estate deals are just as emotional.
“[For both homeowners and business owners,] you really have to deal with kid gloves in that they play very close to the vest,” Celifarco said. “You have to have a certain approach where they feel comfortable speaking with you about their home and their finances or their business and their finances. They want to know that their information is protected.”
Celebrity residential real estate agent Ryan Serhant, who spoke at Broker Fair 2018, said that he lives be three rules to successful in real estate: Follow up, Follow through and Follow back. The last refers to following back a client on social media. This part might not always apply, but Celifarco said that the same persistence is required regardless of the sales client.
“It’s all sales,” he said. “You eat what you kill. You close a deal, you make money. You sell a house, you make money. If you don’t, if you’re not reaching out to your clients, you’re not going to make any money. It’s the same in that you get paid for how hard you work.”
Credit Karma Moves Towards Home Mortgages with Acquisition
August 20, 2018
Credit Karma acquired Approved last week, according to a blog post written by Approved CEO and founder Andy Taylor. Approved is a platform that simplifies and facilitates the process of obtaining home mortgage loans.
“When we left Redfin three years ago to tackle the often painful and tedious process of getting a home loan, nearly everyone in the real estate space was focused on the front end: home search, finding agents and seeing homes,” Taylor wrote. “The industry had lost sight of the fact that a majority of lenders still used fax machines as a regular part of doing business.”
Taylor and co-founder and CTO of Approved, Navtej Sadhal, set out to modernize the process with a number of features including the DocVision Camera which scans documents using the customer’s smartphone.
Both Approved founders had worked at Redfin, a real estate search and brokerage services company, before creating Approved. Taylor and Sadhal will now work for Credit Karma in San Francisco, as Mortgage General Manager and Staff Engineer, respectively.
Founded in 2015, Approved was based in San Diego and originated nearly $5 billion in loans, according to Taylor’s post. It also has reduced document exchange time by 50%, according to the company website.
“Working with Credit Karma gives us the resources and immediate scale to accelerate our mission-driven work, reaching significantly more homebuyers than we could have imagined when we started,” Taylor wrote of Credit Karma’s acquisition of Approved.
Credit Karma, which provides free credit scores and reports, has 80 million members.
United Capital Source Selected to Service BizBloom’s Portfolio
August 19, 2018
Great Neck, NY, August 20, 2018 – United Capital Source has been selected to service the BizBloom portfolio. BizBloom, a NY-based small business financing brokerage that launched in 2015, recently underwent a management change. The company’s president, Thomas Costa, has stepped down.
Costa is also no longer involved with a related business, Accredited Business Solutions, LLC (ABS), which does merchant processing.
“We are happy to use our resources to manage BizBloom’s book,” United Capital Source CEO Jared Weitz said. “It’s something our team is really good at. Our in-house CRM and technology enables us to take on the additional work seamlessly, Our employees are all industry veterans and best of breed.”
Weitz was also recently selected to co-chair the Broker Council of the Small Business Finance Association.
ABOUT UNITED CAPITAL SOURCE:
United Capital Source is a leading small business funding organization headquartered in New York. Thousands of small businesses throughout America rely on the small business loans, business lines of credit, merchant cash advances, working capital loans, credit card factoring, accounts receivable loans, SBA loans, and Equipment financing placed by United Capital Source. Companies with credit challenges unsuitable for traditional bank lending work with United Capital Source for faster funding approvals, reducing financing costs and increasing business funding choices. Our delighted customers are across industries from aviation, construction, dentistry, franchises, healthcare, manufacturing, communications, real estate, retail, and wholesalers. For more information, visitUnitedCapitalSource.com or call 855.933.8638. Visit the United Capital blog on our website and follow United Capital Source on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Survey Indicates That Senior Loan Officers Have Eased Standards
August 10, 2018
Domestic banks eased standards or terms on commercial and industrial (C&I) loans over the past three months, according to a July 2018 Federal Reserve survey that gathered information from senior loan officers at banks. The survey received responses from 72 U.S. banks.
In the survey, banks cited increased competition from other lenders as a reason for easing standards. In addition, a significant number of responses mentioned a more favorable economic outlook, increased tolerance for risk, and increased liquidity in the secondary market for these loans as important reasons for the easing.
According to the survey, banks reported stronger demand for C&I loans by small firms and weaker demand for Commercial Real Estate (CRE) loans. When asked to consider a range of leniency from 2005 to the present, bank respondents said that, on average, their lending standards on C&I loans are currently “at the easier end of the range.”
What does “easing standards” actually mean?
According to the report, it means, in part, that “moderate net fractions of banks narrowed loan rate spreads and increased the maximum maturity on loans to small firms.” It also means that a significant number of banks increased the maximum size of credit lines and narrowed loan rate spreads on loans to large and middle-market firms.
Unlike C&I loan standards, banks kept residential lending standards mostly unchanged, according to the survey. As part of this survey, loan officers at 22 U.S. branches or agencies of foreign banks were also interviewed. Interestingly, a significant portion of foreign banks reported that their level of standards on lending to small firms is actually at the tighter end of the range since 2005.
Oakmont Capital Services Follows Top Talent to Minnesota
July 26, 2018
Yesterday, Oakmont Capital Services announced that it had hired 11 equipment finance veterans to staff its new office in Albany, Minnesota.
All of the new hires were previously working in the Equipment Finance division of Stearns Bank, a regional bank headquartered in Minnesota with retail bank locations throughout the state and in Arizona and Florida. Among banks with $2 to $10 billion in assets, Stearns Bank was named the top performing bank by American Banker for 2017 and 2018. The American Banker noted last year the bank’s expertise in equipment financing. Stearns Bank also received the number one ranking for top-performing community bank in the country from ICBA Independent Banker magazine in its May 2017 edition.
“I’m most excited about the depth of the knowledge base of the people we brought on,” said Founder of Oakmont, Joe Leonard, in reference to the new hires.
Leonard told AltFinanceDaily that Oakmont was looking to expand all along, but the decision to locate its new office in Minnesota was largely based on the group of talent that became available from Stearns Bank. Leonard said there was management change at Stearns Bank, but that the bank still has a robust equipment finance team.
Oakland does equipment finance for the transportation, construction and medical industries, among others. It also provides working capital loans for business acquisitions, commercial real estate, debt consolidation, bridge Loans and export financing. Oakmont can make working capital loans from $300,000 to $20 million.
Leonard said that the bulk of Oakmont’s business is commercial equipment financing and SBA loans. And business is derived almost exclusively from referrals from equipment dealers and manufacturers.
The new hires include Daryn Lecy, who will serve as Vice President of Operations. He has experience helping to grow a portfolio from $140 million to $1.2 billion. He also has experience co-managing over 150 equipment finance employees. Lecy will be responsible for managing Oakmont’s new Minnesota office.
Jim Peach will be Vice President of Sales, Kayla Perling, Syndication Manager, Mikki Henkelman, Credit Manager, Tracey Elfering, Business Development Coordinator, and Jena Dirkes, Channel Development Officer. Chad Primus, Elise Linn, Jayme Gerads, Molly Sand and Michael McElroy will all serve as business development officers.
Founded in 1998, Oakland has its headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania. With the Minnesota office, it now employs roughly 40 people.
California Bill May Disadvantage Small Brokers
July 17, 2018A California State Assembly bill that carefully defines what a broker is, could significantly affect small, unlicensed brokers, according to Tom McCurnin, an attorney at Barton, Klugman and Oetting in Los Angeles.
Assembly bill 3207 enumerates the ways that the bill would depart from the current law. Most notably, the definition of a broker would be far more precise. The current California Licensing Law, which requires brokers to be licensed, defines a broker as “anyone who is engaged in the business of negotiating or performing any act as a broker in connection with loans made by a finance lender.”
Tom McCurnin – Barton, Klugman & Oetting LLP“It’s a circular definition,” McCurnin said. “It presently says that a broker is someone who is brokering transactions.”
Essentially, it defines a broker as a broker, leaving plenty of room for ambiguity.
“With respect to registering to conduct business in the state of California, we’ve got tons of brokers doing deals in California, but they’re not licenced here,” McCurnin said. “They do deals in California, but they’re located in Florida or New York or Michigan. They’re making money in the state of California. Why shouldn’t they pay their fair share of taxes?”
People can always evade the law and not get licenced. But the idea behind this bill is that by making the definition of a broker perfectly clear, it’s no longer possible for a broker to make an argument that they’re not really a broker. With the language in the bill, a broker would be in clear violation of the law if they don’t obtain a licence.
The new definition of a broker would be “anyone who, among other things, transmits confidential data about a prospective borrower to a finance lender with the expectation of compensation.” McCurnin notes that “expectation of compensation” is an important phrase, currently used to describe real estate brokers, because it states clearly that the broker intends to earn money from the consumer. The proposed definition in the bill continues to define a broker as someone who “participates in any loan negotiation between a finance lender and prospective borrower, participates in the preparation of loan documents, communicates lending decisions or inquiries to a borrower, or charges a fee to a prospective borrower for any services related to an application for a loan from a finance lender.”
This definition leaves little room for debate. So what does getting a California State broker licence entail? It requires that a broker have at least $25,000. Beyond this, McCurnin says it inquires primarily about three other things: 1) if you have a criminal record (fingerprints are required), 2) what type of loans you intend to broker (secured, unsecured, etc.), and 3) the size of the loans you intend to broker. There are different regulations for different loan sizes.
Being licensed requires being registered to conduct business in the state of California. And a registered business must pay taxes on earnings in the state. With this in mind, McCurnin said the passage of this bill could be a win for California in that it could result in more out-of-state brokers getting registered and paying taxes on their earnings in the state.
At the same time, should the bill pass, McCurnin thinks it would be a big loss for the small broker who is either unable to show $25,000 or who might have something unsavory to hide. But if the small broker working from his basement has enough capital and is willing to state what he intends to broker in California, then obtaining the license shouldn’t be a problem.
The bill passed in the state Assembly and is being reviewed in the Senate. An amendment to the bill was made on July 5. Another California bill of great significance to the alternative lending industry is SB-1235, which has passed in the state Senate and is being reviewed in the state Assembly. McCurnin said he believes that the broker bill will pass.
“California is a very liberal place,” McCurnin said. “It’s like another country.”
