Widening Borrower Protection’s Scope To SMBs
0Source: PYMNTS
Borrower protection initiatives have taken aim at predatory lenders, both online and brick-and-mortar, with legislators at the state and federal levels addressing concerns that include a lack of transparency and sky-high fees and interest rates.
But only recently have these efforts begun to gradually turn toward small business borrowers, too.
Last month, reports in The Wall Street Journal, citing Federal Reserve data, found that nearly one-third of U.S. small businesses had sought a loan online, compared to just 19 percent that did so in 2017. As online lending platforms proliferate among the SMB borrowing community, however, experts warn that a lack of regulation means these companies rarely publicly reveal interest rates and fees.
As the publication noted, Opportunity Fund recently dug into the numbers and found that the average interest rate among 150 online small business loan contracts is 94 percent, with one rate topping 358 percent.