In just one week, Augmented Reality (AR) proved itself to be the Next Big Thing in popular entertainment. Within days of Niantic Labs release of Pokémon Go, in which players “hunt” and “capture” fantastical creatures using their smartphone cameras, tens of millions of Americans have become hooked on the game. According to media reports, the app has already been installed on twice as many phones as Tinder™, is used twice as much as Snapchat, and is surpassing the all-powerful Twitter in its number of daily active users. The skyrocketing value of parent company Nintendo’s stock price has provided further testament to the game’s perceived long-term stamina.

Experian Business Information Services announces collaboration with Moody’s Analytics on the Experian/Moody’s Analytics Main Street Report. 

The small business credit share is a consortium of banks, credit card companies, leasing agencies and other companies that have agreed to provide financial and non-financial data in exchange for exclusive access to data from other contributors.

When collecting on delinquent debt, the most successful way to approach them is with a combination of perseverance, politeness, and professionalism.

Simply put, online marketplace lending is here to stay. This post includes perspectives from several marketplace lending leaders, about its rapid growth.

Loan aggregators are the ultimate matchmakers. They compare the needs and qualifications of borrowers with lenders and bring the two parties together.

In the wake of the Great Recession, numerous entrepreneurs began to use online lending platforms to offer capital funding programs, short-term loans and other business-to-business (B2B) credit plans to small-business owners who were otherwise unable to do business with traditional banks. Today, much has changed, and “marketplace lending” has grown with loans coming in a wide variety of types, sizes, lengths and terms. The characteristics marketplace lenders tend to share include:

Charles H. Green offers his perspectives on the marketplace lending sector, and how regional banks can build better lending portfolios.

Online lenders represent a valuable resource for small businesses in need of working capital. Also known as “alternative” lenders, they are particularly useful to new businesses lacking the long, detailed credit history that banks and traditional lenders usually require to underwrite a commercial loan.

The Responsible Business Lending Coalition — a group of nonbank small-business lenders — announced a self-regulatory program during August that is designed to bring greater clarity and consistency to its industry’s pricing and consumer protections. The Small Business Borrower’s Bill of Rights outlines six primary principles that those signing the pledge will abide by when lending to small businesses. They include:

This week, we invited Charles H. Green to offer his perspectives on the online marketplace lending sector. The following article is his contribution to our series on marketplace lending.