[Funder Mark]

I have seen the advertirements, and heard about Yellowstone, Pearl, Cooper, Cresthill, Everest, andd too many High-Risk lenders to keep track of. When it gets down to it, what is the real differences? Who does the highest risk deals, with the mosy industries? I saw one deal, Pearl offered $20k, Yellowstone offered $75k. Without any bashing, what do some companies see, that others do not? How can I fugure the best places to send my clients to?

[Eagle Funding]

Your personal relationship with lender and the merchants history play a huge part

[GRP Funding]

Depends what type of merchants you're going after. Are you targeting high risk merchants?

[Andy]

My suggestion pick one and send the majority of your high risk deals to them. Which one to pick? Whichever one you have the best relationship with, whoever has the most helpful ISO rep that you deal with.
Because as Allen said above, your relationship with the lender is very important, the more deals you can send a lender and more biz you do with one lender, the more corners they will cut for you. And if you have a good ISO rep that fights for your approvals for you, that can help a lot too
If you don't do a ton of business you may be better off going through a large ISO, they will know the best place to submit the deals to, your commissions will be the same as if you went to the funder directly, and you will probably get stronger approvals .

[J.Celifarco]

Every bank has what they are good at.. The majority of the banks you listed there are high risk lenders. You only need 1 or 2 so you need to reach out to them, look at the iso agreements and decide who you are comfortable to work with..

[funding pro]

Not being specific and in no order at all:
Technology
Reliability
History
Programs
Service/turn-around times
Capitalization
Commissions

[JayBallentine]

look at the iso agreements and decide who you are comfortable to work with..

Impossible to discern from just looking at an ISO agreement. You want to leverage relationships. Especially when it comes to getting fast approvals.

This is both a "gift and a curse."


The Gift

You, like me may have a hookup that can get you 1-2 hour approvals at one of the funders listed above. That "hookup" comes at a price to the next guy. Someone is paying a price each time you cash in your gift. We actually did most of the work to give offers ourselves, our "hookup" verifies that our offers are in the realm of reason.


The Curse

You could be on the other end of this equation. You get a deal in at 9 a.m., another guy gets a deal in at 11 a.m., he gets an approval by 1 p.m. and you're still waiting for yours to go into underwriting.


This is happening on a wholesale basis. What do you do when your approvals are slower to come by? That means the next check is slower to come by, that means the buy rate is upsold and / or fees are tacked on...

Every funder in this business has the ability to provide ISO's with the basic service of giving them automated approvals securely. The technology has gotten exceedingly easier to build and deploy since OnDeck did it. The math is not that difficult.

We know because we have built all of the above.

There's no better feeling than seeing deals our system declines in minutes that we would have:

1. Requested a signed app for.
2. Solicited bank statements for.
3. Submitted to wait for a decline - days later.


There were tens of thousands of declines this year... I am sure they all went down this way. All that excess waste is surely reflecting itself in:

1. Merchants getting bad deals.
2. Merchants in seasonal businesses getting funded going into slow season (gotta keep money busy to keep that credit facility).
3. The add on fees.

[Funder Mark]

Thanks for all the informaton, but I was actually mainly asking about the deal I mentioned. It was a riskier company, used car dealership, with some low balances, due to the merchant buying new cars himself. So sometimes he would have very low balances. Full disclosure, that deal already funded. My question, assuming that everything else is equel, what did Yellowstone see, that they offered 3 times more than Pearl?

[JayBallentine]

Thanks for all the informaton, but I was actually mainly asking about the deal I mentioned. It was a riskier company, used car dealership, with some low balances, due to the merchant buying new cars himself. So sometimes he would have very low balances. Full disclosure, that deal already funded. My question, assuming that everything else is equel, what did Yellowstone see, that they offered 3 times more than Pearl?

A larger sample size of similar situations may just answer the question for you...

[aredmond]

Like everyone else said, it is all about relationships you build. I would recommend everest, they are quick on approvals, they take medium/high risk, they pay comms next day. Just a thought

[edobesh]

I'll second that post on Everest. They're fast, they're professional, they get great approvals, and they're willing to work with you if you need the terms adjusted.

[anonymous]

Everest really is one of the best that I've worked with. They are professional, responsive, and consistent. That said, in addition to having a few "in-house" lenders, YS has the ability to broker deals out to 20+ lenders if need be. The YS guys I have dealt with in the past are experienced and know where to send each deal. You are basically comparing 1 approval to the best of 26 (approx) approvals. Those are tough odds for Pearl to compete against.

[edobesh]

True, and that can be really helpful for a merchant whose credit is already shot, but if you're trying to preserve someone's credit, YS can be absolutely destructive. Those lenders they send it out to all do their own credit pulls, and if you've got 26 people pulling credit, with a few points dropping off each time it's pulled, that can be bad news for someone who's worked hard to keep their credit up, and it can cost you the sale if the merchant sees that. Do I still use YS? All the time. They're an outstanding resource to have, and they've gotten solid approvals for deals no one else would touch. But be careful with what you're sending to them, and if you have a deal that you can send elsewhere, I'd advise doing so. You'll generally get more points commission that way anyway, and it's not like YS is hurting for the business.