OnDeck Expands to Canada

OnDeck, a small business lender, has expanded to Canada.

Since 2007 OnDeck has lent over $2 billion to businesses in more than 700 industries and has been lending in Canada since 2014.

As part of the expansion OnDeck will offer loans of up to $150,000 (CAD) with 6 to 24 month terms to Canada’s 1.1 million small businesses. The loans are currently available in all provinces and territories other than Quebec. 

Rob Young, Senior Vice President of International Operations, OnDeck, commented:

"At OnDeck, we are only focused on small business lending.  From very early on we have seen an enormous opportunity to help Canadian small businesses meet their growth and seasonal financing needs. OnDeck launched here to make access to capital better and easier for Canadian small businesses and we are excited to expand our offering to further meet their needs."

In Canada small businesses are vital to the economy and each year 41% of small businesses seek capital for their businesses. And yet, according to Statistics Canada, less than half get the financing they need. OnDeck aims to change this as OnDeck’s technology-enabled financing solution can deliver decisions and funding to Canadian businesses in a matter of days,

We have recently taken an in-depth look at the Canadian marketplace lending space. There is an oligopoly of five banks that control the market and Canadians tend to stay with the same banks for all their financing needs. The Canadian banking sector has been compared to the Australian space where similarly there are four big banks that dominate the market. OnDeck announced just last week that they are expanding into Australia. The experience the platform has of entering the Canadian market should help with this enterprise.

It will be interesting to see whether any of American platforms look to emulate OnDeck’s fast paced expansion. We will be watching to see whether any other platforms decide to make the move north to Canada or over to Europe or Australia.