According to BusinessWeek, if you were to ask Josh Reich for his thoughts on the traditional bank, he’d simply tell you that they suck. Reich, a former equity researcher at a New York investment fund, last year co-founded BankSimple with former McKinsey consultant Shamir Karkal, a fellow graduate of Carnegie Mellon business school. Though the […]
Building A Better Bank Read More »
USA TODAY is reporting that Sam’s Club said it will offer small business loans of up to $25,000 to its small business members. The division of Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., is testing a program with Superior Financial Group, one of 13 federally licensed non-bank lenders, and will offer $5,000 to $25,000 loans to members
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Gentle Parking has grown quickly since William Ortiz-Cartagena started the San Francisco company two years ago. He now employs 25 people and says he turns a decent profit running six parking lots, including two he manages for the city. When he decided to bid on a contract to run another city-owned lot, though, two banks
Microfinance Goes Where Banks Fear To Tread Read More »
Square is a new start-up that was co-founded by Jack Dorsey (the guy who created Twitter and was their original CEO). According to Fast Company, Square is a “is both a foolproof and attractive experience” that will appeal to small businesses.
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Many tax advisors tell their self-employed clients — including those who are “consulting” while looking for work — to open separate business bank accounts to make it easier to separate business and personal expenses for tax purposes. Don’t do it, says The Los Angeles Times. This common tax advice could turn into a banking nightmare
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According to a story in USA TODAY, David Harmer didn’t think he’d have a problem getting a $50,000 line of credit for his 33-year-old air-conditioning business. First Class of Cape Coral, Fla., was profitable. Harmer’s net worth was $2 million, and he’d never been late with a loan payment. As Harmer tells it, a bank
Small Banks Can’t Win In Small-Biz Lending Read More »
This is the funniest headline I’ve EVER read in the Wall Street Journal: Two of the Three Little Pigs Would Have Trouble Getting a Loan Like many Americans, Jon and Laura Hagar are searching for a lender to refinance their home loan. But banks are leery of the Hagars. Their rural Colorado house is made
Homes Built of Tires and Trash Lure Environmentalists But Turn Off Bankers Read More »
photo credit: markgee6 WSJ: Most bank managers fret about bad loans or a run on deposits. Luzia Moraes has to worry about a leak in the hull, bandits and rainstorms that keep clients away for weeks. Ms. Moraes, a 43-year-old former housewife, is at the helm of a swashbuckling new venture in Brazil–as manager of
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The Treasury Department will invest up to $1 billion from the federal bank bailout fund in small banks and credit unions that make loans to small businesses in some of the communities most ravaged by the economic downturn, according to a story in The New York Times. About 210 institutions will be eligible for low-cost
Program Offers Money to Banks to Help Small Biz Read More »
A rising swarm of cyber-robberies targeting small firms, local governments, school districts, churches and non-profits has prompted an extraordinary warning. The American Bankers Association and the FBI are advising small and midsize businesses that conduct financial transactions over the Internet to dedicate a separate PC used exclusively for online banking, reports USA Today. The reason:
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