Online small-business loans catch eye of companies, regulators

CHICAGO

Buresh needed a bigger mixer and a new oven pronto. After traditional bankers told him a small-business loan could take up to three months to get, Buresh turned to an online lender that offered credit, fast.

"I would have looked into more options, but, being a small-business owner, I didn't have a lot of time to go back and forth to banks," said Buresh, who initially delivered his homemade goodies in a food truck.

Days after signing for the loan, Buresh regretted it. On top of interest and fees he regarded as draconian, the lender deducted a set amount daily from his checking account. "If we got slow, they would still take that amount, and some weeks I had a hard time paying my staff and bills," said Buresh, 37.

His final tab for a $19,500 loan for nine months: about $25,000.

Technological advances and big data are changing how consumers and small businesses get financing. Online lenders can provide small-business borrowers with faster access to credit than they can get through the traditional face-to-face application process, and, with studies showing only about half of entrepreneurs getting the financing they apply for, alternative lenders see an opening.

Their higher profile and growing popularity, however, are drawing scrutiny.

In a report about online lending last month by the Treasury Department, a common theme was how small-business borrowers might need improved safeguards because protections for them aren't always as robust as they are for consumers. Online lenders to small businesses include OnDeck, Funding Circle and Bond Street, whose loans carry annual percentage rates ranging from 6.9 to 98.4 percent, Treasury said.

One reason banks don't go out of their way to lend to the Etsy crafts people or food-truck operators of the world: It costs banks about the same to underwrite a $5 million loan as a $200,000 loan, Treasury said.

On $100,000 loans to small businesses, banks can even lose money, or, at best, break even, due to high underwriting and compliance costs, PayNet, a provider of credit ratings on small businesses, told Treasury during a public-comment period last year.

Chicago-based Dude Products, which makes wipes for men, used online business lender Kabbage to help finance a product rollout. Dude CEO Sean Riley learned of the lender in 2014 through a Facebook ad and quickly received $15,000 at an interest rate of about 10 percent. "We hadn't been in business for two years, and banks were asking for two years of tax returns," Riley said.

Although Riley had a good experience with Kabbage, and although 1 in 5 small businesses seek credit from online lenders, the sector's customer satisfaction scores fall short of banks due to concerns over high interest rates and unfavorable repayment terms, the Fed study said.

"We didn't have enough of a track record" for a bank loan, he said.

Worried about falling behind on payments, he worked a second job as an Uber driver, and paid off the loan within four months.

To expand his business and build a restaurant and kitchen, he recently qualified for a $30,000 loan — this time from a nonprofit lender, Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, that offered a rate of 10 percent.

"They were the first institution to say, 'We trust you,' " said Emmanuel, who remains wary of online lenders.