For many online and other small businesses, getting a loan or a big cash advance is tough. Banks and other traditional lenders are often leery of those without years of financial statements and solid credit scores.
But some lenders and other financial services companies are beginning to assess credit risk differently — using criteria you might not expect.
Jeffrey Grossman is an acupuncturist in Bellingham, Wash. He's also a small businessman. He creates media marketing materials for other acupuncturists hoping to expand their practice.
Over the years, Grossman has borrowed money from family and from bank lines of credit, but recently, he needed a quick infusion of extra cash. He turned to a company called Kabbage, an online financing firm for small businesses.
He found the concept interesting, but the application also made him skeptical. "They wanted all this information about QuickBooks [accounting software] and UPS accounts and all this stuff," he says.
Such details, says Kathryn Petralia, a co-founder of Kabbage, allows the company to "effectively build a financial statement." The firm provides financing to small businesses — such as online merchants — that banks typically don't lend to. Petralia says Kabbage uses real-time and verifiable data from things like UPS shipments, eBay and PayPal accounts to assess creditworthiness.
"We can see historical data and current data, and we can see tomorrow's data. And we are looking at information that could be as detailed as what people are actually buying from you," Petralia says.
And she says that can be more useful than static financial documents that banks and other traditional lenders typically rely on.
“ Are customers saying that you are doing a good job? Are consumers complaining about you?