Hiring in the B2B Finance Industry Still Challenging

“To say that hiring is a difficult process is an understatement and I think that it’s a direct reflection of the labor market and the volatility in America’s labor market right now,” said Manny Yosipov, CEO at Advanced Recovery Group. Yosipov’s company does collections in the MCA and business lending space, where like many other industries, persistently low unemployment coupled with a workforce tuned into lifestyle accommodations has made the hiring environment challenging.

“You have quality talent now that want remote work and a lot of flexibility,” said Yosipov. “I think that it’s hardest for companies that have started pre-covid, survived covid, and are now trying to grow and scale in the post covid market.”

Daniel Hye, ISO Relations Manager at Zahav Asset Management, said that if remote work wasn’t in such high demand, the open positions would have likely been filled by now. Zahav is currently looking to fill an underwiting and collections role.

“We could have already had someone, but we really don’t want remote because it makes a huge difference with the way things work,” Hye said. “Especially in our industry, everything’s about speed. You want to walk over to the underwriter or you want to turn around to the underwriter and say, ‘Hey, this deal, the ISO just called me, can we get this done? Or this was a mistake? Can you do this?’ Once it’s remote it changes the whole dynamics of how everything works.”

“I mean, remote is very preferred by a lot of people,” said Carli Bova-Chezem, Director of Human Resources at Capital Gurus, “but it’s kind of funny I talked to so many people all the time and it really isn’t for everybody. I get handfuls of people that are like, ‘I’ve been remote for the last month but I really want that camaraderie of an office and I miss being around people.’”

Capital Gurus has used a variety of sources to recruit but they’re now using an end-to-end hiring system called Breezy. Bova-Chezem said that it’s increased their application rate while streamlining the process.

“There’s a plethora of places that these applicants are coming from,” said Bova-Chezem. “Up until I’d say about a month ago, it was primarily LinkedIn, which is obviously a great resource, but we’ve gotten a lot more outreach using this new system, which has been great.”

Hye of Zahav, meanwhile, says they’ve also tried a variety of systems but that it comes down to finding job applicants with proper experience. “I think the biggest issue is being able to find someone who fits the criteria and is happy to get involved,” Hye said.

Why I’m An Evangelist…. For Outside Accounting Firms in MCA

David Roitblat is the founder and CEO of Better Accounting Solutions, an accounting firm based in New York City, and a leading authority in specialized accounting for merchant cash advance companies. To connect with David or schedule a call about working with Better Accounting Solutions, email david@betteraccountingsolutions.com.

For over a decade, since the explosion of the merchant cash advance industry in the United States, my team and I at Better Accounting Solutions have been working with a growing number of people and businesses involved in the industry, including brokers, funders, syndicators and investors. We’ve spent time meeting and mingling with you at industry events like Broker Fair and spent more hours talking on the phone advising you than we can bill for.

All this experience has led me to one conclusion, one reinforced the longer we work together with many of you: to thrive and be successful in the merchant cash advance industry, you need a third-party independent financial expert embedded in your business and books.

To declare the obvious context and biases up front: yes, this benefits businesses like mine and yes, I know this from working with many of you. But people become knowledgeable and experts in their own field that they’ve spent years studying and developing, which is why I feel qualified to discuss this.

In the ever-evolving world of merchant cash advance and its challenging relationship with transparency and ethics, trust with your business partners is a must.

Having independent third-party financial experts that report to both parties-for example between a funder and their syndicators- is the only way to ensure complete transparency without bias or conflict. It eliminates the possibility of the funder misappropriating the syndicator’s investment and skimming off what the investors are owed. Firms like ours excel in tracking the numbers to see the deals that are working and the ones that aren’t, and can demonstrate what is trending down to stop a bad deal from spiraling into a company-killing problem.

People often choose to rely on a single in-house accountant to manage their books because they want exclusive focus, but there are plenty of downsides to that as well. Not only are accountants hired from another corporate job rarely equipped to accurately track deals in the complicated world of cash advance, but they are also incentivized to make their reports as favorable as they can to their own company, which may scare syndicators and investors whom they have no obligations to. By outsourcing these critical functions to a specialized firm, MCA funders send a clear message to investors and syndicators: they take financial accountability seriously and they are a trustworthy and transparent business to work with, with open books for their partners to peer in.

Industry scandals that bring our profession into disrepute- such as the collapses of MJ Capital Funding, LLC and 1 Global Capital– were able to happen because the investors pouring money into what they thought were legitimate MCA businesses weren’t given access to the companies books until it was too late and hundreds of millions of dollars were forever lost.

Obviously, you should be wise about people’s motives, even mine as the author of this article, but you should also take every piece of advice into consideration, particularly one that objectively suggests measures that fosters and promote trust and better business growth practices.

Remember, in the world of finance, trust is the most valuable asset of all.

With Fraud on the Rise, AI Can Fill in the Gaps

In today’s dynamic world of fraud detection, technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) are allies. The insights of industry experts, Yinglian Xie, a technology veteran with a background at Microsoft Research and CEO at DataVisor, Sandip Nayak, President at Fundation, and Andrew Davies, Global Head of Regulatory Affairs at ComplyAdvantage, discuss the transformative role of AI in fraud prevention.

When DataVisor started, it primarily offered advanced machine learning solutions, through an unsupervised approach. In other words, their programs can spot fraud without needing a loss or training labels; they can automatically identify suspicious activities. Xie explains that AI’s ability to make rapid decisions during real-time transactions depends on the amount of data available for this process. To achieve a proactive response, it must be synchronized with real-time data, as opposed to a manual or “supervised machine learning” approach.

“We need to kind of switch the traditional approach looking at fraud being very much kind of an isolated case, like a manual approach, and into something we need technology for, said Xie. “And we need to essentially be able to make decisions instantaneously as well.”

In addition to unsupervised learning algorithms, Xie explains that generative AI falls into another category of fraud detection. This method describes the data and communicates information back in human-like responses. Xie gives an example that as customers, some may not understand why a transaction was rejected and that’s where generative AI comes to rationalize the reason behind the rejection.

Echoing Xie, Nayak described solutions where traditional techniques fail, one of them being unsupervised learning algorithms. These algorithms can use techniques like anomaly detection to actually hone in on “the needle in a haystack problem.”

“Number two, the automated and advanced nature of AI can really solve the shortcomings of rules based and human based approaches in detecting fraud and can also self-calibrate itself as the nature of fraud evolves with time,” said Nayak.

Meanwhile, Andrew Davies pointed out that one of the biggest challenges faced by banks and financial institutions is “they are constantly playing catch-up.” With the accelerated pace of money movement and real-time settlement, he emphasized that fraudsters capitalize on this by being swift and innovative, continuously seeking out new vulnerabilities to exploit.

“Banks must update their legacy technology which leaves too many weak points in the control environment,” said Davies. “Additionally, as money moves more quickly and is subject to finality, fraud detection must be done in real time.”

And as the digital landscape continues to evolve, Nayak envisions the adoption of these technologies will be beneficial to the lending industry. Embracing different strategies not only reduces fraud losses but also enhances capital efficiency, paving the way for increased profitability and security in lending, according to Nayak.

“I do expect the lending industry, especially the ones who adopt the latest technologies of fraud detection, will have a competitive advantage compared to those who don’t,” said Nayak. “And what that will do is it will help them preserve more of their capital in the current tough macro environment by helping the overall unit economics…”

Unsupervised machine learning and generative AI are strategies reshaping fraud prevention. The ability to make rapid, data-driven decisions, adapt to evolving fraud tactics, and provide human explanations behind alerts has become a cornerstone in modern fraud detection.

Fundfi Secures New Credit Facility

Efraim Kandinov, CEO, Fundfi

Fundfi Merchant Funding LLC, a leading provider of Merchant Cash Advances (MCA), is proud to announce securing their newest credit facility to continue growing its funding portfolio.

The new line of credit, secured through a strategic partnership with Crown Partners LP, exemplifies Fundfi Merchant Funding’s unwavering commitment to supporting small and medium-sized businesses by providing them with accessible and flexible funding solutions.

This substantial financial injection arrives at an opportune moment for Fundfi Merchant Funding as it seeks to capitalize on a growing demand for alternative financing options among businesses facing challenges in securing traditional bank loans.

Efraim Kandinov, Co-Founder and CEO of Fundfi Merchant Funding LLC stated, “This line of credit not only bolsters our financial capabilities but also underscores our unwavering commitment to supporting businesses on their journey to success.

Natasha Dillon, CFO, Fundfi

We understand the unique challenges entrepreneurs face, and this new funding empowers us to make a more profound impact in helping them thrive and achieve their dreams.”

Natasha Dillon, Co-Founder and CFO of Fundfi Merchant Funding LLC, commented, “This infusion represents a tremendous vote of confidence in our company and its mission. We are excited to leverage these funds to continue supporting businesses when they need it most and to innovate our offerings to better serve our clients.”

About Fundfi

Fundfi Merchant Funding LLC, headquartered in New York, is a leading provider of Merchant Cash Advances (MCA), offering tailored financing solutions to businesses across various industries selected.