CAN Capital and iPayment Forge Strategic Partnership

The agreement may be tagged as yet another example of “network lending”.

Alternative small business finance platform CAN Capital and the US provider of payment solutions and processing services iPayment announced today that they’ve agreed a strategic partnership. CAN Capital will provide over 150,000 small businesses currently working with iPayment the opportunity to access flexible financial solutions including products such as  working capital for as little as three business days.

The core element of this partnership is the integration of iPayment's customer portal with CAN Capital through its CAN Connect platform - a full suite of standardized Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that enable sales partners to offer their small business customers information about how to access to working capital solutions. The agreement will allow iPayment customers access to CAN Capital products through both online and offline channels.

Founded in 1999, CAN Capital has been helping small and medium-sized businesses  access  capital through business loans made by WebBank, a Utah chartered Industrial Bank. To date, it has provided borrowers with approximately $5.5 billion in capital - CAN Capital says that it bases its decision on innovative risk models combined with daily performance data to evaluate business performances. 

Daniel DeMeo, CEO of CAN Capital, commented: 

"For almost 18 years, CAN Capital has been leading the alternative small business finance industry, and to-date we have provided access to over $5.5 billion in working capital. […] Our success is driven by the success of our customers, and by working with sales partners like iPayment, we will be able to help many more small businesses grow and achieve their goals."

    
iPayments provides services to 153,000 merchants located throughout the United States, enabling them to accept credit cards as well as other forms of card-based payment. Greg Cohen, President of iPayment, Inc., added: 

"At iPayment, we are committed to providing our customers with fully integrated, all-encompassing payment services and value added solutions to help them do what's most important - build, run and grow successful businesses. Our partnership with CAN Capital is another example of our commitment to listening to market demand and delivering a streamlined solution for our SMB customers."

This agreement echoes the deal between Worldpay and Liberis, forged last week. Worldpay has partnered with merchant cash advance provider Liberis to launch a new funding scheme by the name of Worldpay Business Finance.
Both deals are in effect a form of “network lending”. Similar partnerships include Zopa loans for Uber drivers, as well as MarketInvoice’s integration with Sage 50 Accounts. Such agreements not only allow platforms to expand their customer base and thus increase their loan origination volumes, but also provide lenders with deep reserves of data which could prove to be an invaluable source of information, allowing them to minimise  friction in the lending process.