[helpingmca]

There is ongoing debate whether MCA is growing, shrinking, or even worse - dead? No doubt there are many structural changes in players & policies, but let's look at the data to cut through the noise.

Source: CreditFeed, the new intelligence database for the bespoke MCA industry

First, here are new MCA originations across over the last 5 years, and 2026 YTD.
(NOTE: counts are sampled from a few markets across the West Coast, the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest)



Here's the # of originations per unique merchant and per unique lender:



Further, here's the SBFA and Fed's estimate of MCA transaction volume during this same time span:



Key Takeaways

1. The MCA industry is growing — clearly, and it's not close.
Every angle in our data points up: originations grew ~3.8× since 2020, with +49% YoY in both 2024 and 2025, and unique borrowers up +41% in 2025. 2026 is pacing to continue (H1 borrowers +25% YoY). This isn't a measurement artifact — the direction holds across independent signals (text-detected and lender-detected filings both rose in 2025) and it matches top-down industry estimates of ~3.5× growth. One honest caveat: part of the 2024 jump reflects our improved data coverage, so 2025 is the cleanest "real growth" read — but the verdict is unambiguous: the market is expanding, not shrinking.

2. Growth is coming from new merchants, not stacking — so prospecting beats chasing.
Financings-per-merchant stayed flat at ~1.5× even as borrowers grew +41%. The pool of newly-active MCA merchants is expanding fast; your growth lever is net-new discovery, not re-working the same stacked accounts.

3. ~1.5 advances per merchant per year = a predictable renewal clock.
Merchants come back at a steady cadence, so every funded merchant is a scheduled future opportunity. Track payoffs and maturities (our data flags these) and time outreach to the re-up window — the highest-intent moment.

4. Lenders are concentrating — incumbents are writing far more deals each.
Deals-per-lender jumped ~35 → ~71 while the lender count barely grew in 2025 (+3%). Capital is flowing in through a stable set of active funders. Know the top 20–30 driving volume — that's where submissions get worked, and rising per-funder competition gives you leverage to shop a deal.

5. The strongest prospects show up before their first MCA — watch the leading-edge signals.
CreditFeed data surfaces merchants carrying distress or alt-lending signals — government/tax liens, fresh blanket liens, or 2+ non-bank lenders — who haven't taken an MCA yet. These are the highest-intent prospects: businesses already leaning on alternative capital and showing cash-flow pressure, one step away from needing an advance.

The MCA industry is a growing industry. But this is not to say that there are many structural changes that dramatically impact the viability and strategy that MCA brokers and funders should take. But that's for another longer blog post for another time.

- CreditFeed, the new intelligence database for the bespoke MCA industry.

[sean-nayyar]

There is ongoing debate whether MCA is growing, shrinking, or even worse - dead? No doubt there are many structural changes in players & policies, but let's look at the data to cut through the noise.

Source: CreditFeed, the new intelligence database for the bespoke MCA industry

First, here are new MCA originations across over the last 5 years, and 2026 YTD.
(NOTE: counts are sampled from a few markets across the West Coast, the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest)



Here's the # of originations per unique merchant and per unique lender:



Further, here's the SBFA and Fed's estimate of MCA transaction volume during this same time span:



Key Takeaways

1. The MCA industry is growing — clearly, and it's not close.
Every angle in our data points up: originations grew ~3.8× since 2020, with +49% YoY in both 2024 and 2025, and unique borrowers up +41% in 2025. 2026 is pacing to continue (H1 borrowers +25% YoY). This isn't a measurement artifact — the direction holds across independent signals (text-detected and lender-detected filings both rose in 2025) and it matches top-down industry estimates of ~3.5× growth. One honest caveat: part of the 2024 jump reflects our improved data coverage, so 2025 is the cleanest "real growth" read — but the verdict is unambiguous: the market is expanding, not shrinking.

2. Growth is coming from new merchants, not stacking — so prospecting beats chasing.
Financings-per-merchant stayed flat at ~1.5× even as borrowers grew +41%. The pool of newly-active MCA merchants is expanding fast; your growth lever is net-new discovery, not re-working the same stacked accounts.

3. ~1.5 advances per merchant per year = a predictable renewal clock.
Merchants come back at a steady cadence, so every funded merchant is a scheduled future opportunity. Track payoffs and maturities (our data flags these) and time outreach to the re-up window — the highest-intent moment.

4. Lenders are concentrating — incumbents are writing far more deals each.
Deals-per-lender jumped ~35 → ~71 while the lender count barely grew in 2025 (+3%). Capital is flowing in through a stable set of active funders. Know the top 20–30 driving volume — that's where submissions get worked, and rising per-funder competition gives you leverage to shop a deal.

5. The strongest prospects show up before their first MCA — watch the leading-edge signals.
CreditFeed data surfaces merchants carrying distress or alt-lending signals — government/tax liens, fresh blanket liens, or 2+ non-bank lenders — who haven't taken an MCA yet. These are the highest-intent prospects: businesses already leaning on alternative capital and showing cash-flow pressure, one step away from needing an advance.

The MCA industry is a growing industry. But this is not to say that there are many structural changes that dramatically impact the viability and strategy that MCA brokers and funders should take. But that's for another longer blog post for another time.

- CreditFeed, the new intelligence database for the bespoke MCA industry.

Now show us how many of those originations are scammers running a fake LOC, how many defaulted and took small lenders underwater, how many are backdoors, how many are faking people's identities and stealing lender's funds (Saul Shalev case etc).

[kman]

Now show us how many of those originations are scammers running a fake LOC, how many defaulted and took small lenders underwater, how many are backdoors, how many are faking people's identities and stealing lender's funds (Saul Shalev case etc).

backdoors shouldnt be included in this count either - who cares - if the client got a better deal thats on the iso

and if your merchant falls for a LOC scam - they were a lost cause to begin with


i think the true annual number is prob ~250mil - which is sub 2% (i guess not great lol)

[sean-nayyar]

backdoors shouldnt be included in this count either - who cares - if the client got a better deal thats on the iso

and if your merchant falls for a LOC scam - they were a lost cause to begin with


i think the true annual number is prob ~250mil - which is sub 2% (i guess not great lol)

Oh, i forgot to mention... the debt settlement guys as well that convince the merchant to default and then the settlement company tries to negotiate it on their behalf with the MCA company.

[Yankeeman07]

This is a small snippet of what is facing the Broker - funder Shops - which Square offers at much better rates. - Square’s lending arm — Square Loans — reported that $7 billion in loans were funded to merchants in 2025 -

Shopify Capital originated $4.2 billion in merchant cash advances (MCAs) and business loans in 2025, up from $3 billion in 2024

[sean-nayyar]

This is a small snippet of what is facing the Broker - funder Shops - which Square offers at much better rates. - Square’s lending arm — Square Loans — reported that $7 billion in loans were funded to merchants in 2025 -

Shopify Capital originated $4.2 billion in merchant cash advances (MCAs) and business loans in 2025, up from $3 billion in 2024

oh so big money got involved. that would explain fundings and originations going up, but the industry feeling dead to brokers and smaller funder shops? are these new guys on the block (shopify and square) competitive with rates etc? might be hard to sell a 1.40 when the new guy on the block is offering them much cheaper financing options.

[helpingmca]

Bingo. That is arguably the biggest structural paradigm shift that the MCA industry is facing right now.

We will share a data-backed way of what brokers & ISOs can do in response to better position themselves in a future post.

The key here is that MCA is not dead; it's changing. So the players need to adapt and change with it.

- CreditFeed, the new intelligence database for the bespoke MCA industry.

[Yankeeman07]

oh so big money got involved. that would explain fundings and originations going up, but the industry feeling dead to brokers and smaller funder shops? are these new guys on the block (shopify and square) competitive with rates etc? might be hard to sell a 1.40 when the new guy on the block is offering them much cheaper financing options.

a bit difficult to determine what Square rates are- but - in speaking with merchants that have Square processing - 2 items stand out - Ease of accepting funding - they login to the merchant portal and they are alerted to what amount is available - click accept - within minutes - $$ are in their account.

[sean-nayyar]

a bit difficult to determine what Square rates are- but - in speaking with merchants that have Square processing - 2 items stand out - Ease of accepting funding - they login to the merchant portal and they are alerted to what amount is available - click accept - within minutes - $$ are in their account.

that easy huh. could be trouble for the competition

[Yankeeman07]

that easy huh. could be trouble for the competition

It is that easy for Square Account holders - Square is an invite to accept funding - The merchant does not complete an application - The amount of funding offered is not guaranteed as the amount funded - Square can still decline.

[ANJ]

Most shops I know are hitting record numbers. There will be changes and people will adapt. It's an industry that if lawmakers delve into it there will be sweeping changes so enjoy the wild west while it lasts. It can stay like this for a decade for all we know.

[ADVENTUREFG]

Most shops I know are hitting record numbers. There will be changes and people will adapt. It's an industry that if lawmakers delve into it there will be sweeping changes so enjoy the wild west while it lasts. It can stay like this for a decade for all we know.

Shops as in brokerage or funders?
Because yes with an economic low all businesses are applying so if you mean all-time high in submissions sure.
But what about all-time highs in defaults, stacks, LOC scams, debt reconsolidation scams. etc.

What i will say is big money did it once again. Not sure if this example will resonate with anyone. But There's Costco, Walmart, Sams club etc etc etc that took over the mom-and-pop grocery chains. What did the smart ones do? they niched, they got creative and worked on customer service increase and other methods to remain and business and scale. and many to date are doing the same.
At what point does merchant cash advance start for the bare minimum working on customer service, transparency and doing atleast for the bare bare minimum within leverage fundings.


Even as a micro funder the amount of fundings we see where merchants are doing for example, 15-20k and got 30k 40 days from a funder or 30k 70 days. Mind you with a $100-$200 daily ledger balance. I cant even fathom on the larger files the mess.

[helpingmca]

Spot on ADVENTUREFG. Said differently, anytime the fintechs create disruption in an industry, this creates a barbell economy amongst existing players.

Fintech tends to commoditize the standardized, high-volume, low-complexity slice of the market—the vanilla deal that's really just matchmaking plus paperwork. So value migrates to the two ends: scale + tech on one side, high-touch expertise on the other. The undifferentiated middle—the guy doing standard submissions the standard way—gets hollowed out.

This is not unique to MCA. For example, when Rocket/fintechs disrupted the mortgage industry, brokers who lived on vanilla conforming loans got squeezed to zero on rate—because once the software prices a clean W-2 borrower in seconds, you're just competing with an algorithm on speed and price, and you lose. The ones who survived fled upmarket into the deals the software couldn't touch: self-employed and 1099 borrowers, jumbo and non-QM, investor and multi-property loans—files where structuring and human judgment still carry the value. Same barbell: Rocket took the scale-and-tech end, the survivors took the expertise end, and the broker doing standard conforming deals the standard way got hollowed out of the middle.

There's lots of adaptations that the broader MCA community can make to turn the fintech headwind into a tailwind. We'll do a deeper dive on this, backed by data, in our next post.

[ANJ]

Shops as in brokerage or funders?
Because yes with an economic low all businesses are applying so if you mean all-time high in submissions sure.
But what about all-time highs in defaults, stacks, LOC scams, debt reconsolidation scams. etc.

What i will say is big money did it once again. Not sure if this example will resonate with anyone. But There's Costco, Walmart, Sams club etc etc etc that took over the mom-and-pop grocery chains. What did the smart ones do? they niched, they got creative and worked on customer service increase and other methods to remain and business and scale. and many to date are doing the same.
At what point does merchant cash advance start for the bare minimum working on customer service, transparency and doing atleast for the bare bare minimum within leverage fundings.


Even as a micro funder the amount of fundings we see where merchants are doing for example, 15-20k and got 30k 40 days from a funder or 30k 70 days. Mind you with a $100-$200 daily ledger balance. I cant even fathom on the larger files the mess.

So you are saying the MCA industry canabalized themselves but being unethical and now the real financial firms will take over the A file end while the MCA guys must eat off the garbage files.

[ADVENTUREFG]

So you are saying the MCA industry canabalized themselves but being unethical and now the real financial firms will take over the A file end while the MCA guys must eat off the garbage files.

Basically, but we haven't hit the point of no return. in our opinion, It's a combined effort from brokers and funders alike. Brokers provide top tier customer service and transparency. Meanwhile funders provide within leverage offers, reduce stacking. respect another funder funded the file first and ate up the leverage if its max'd out. Then we may stand a chance, the big guys are a machine with limitations due to size in customer support. This is where we can shine. Provide 1 on 1 care that no huge enterprise can do and handle.

or we can continue to be greedy as a whole and watch the industry get taken from us.

[sean-nayyar]

Basically, but we haven't hit the point of no return. in our opinion, It's a combined effort from brokers and funders alike. Brokers provide top tier customer service and transparency. Meanwhile funders provide within leverage offers, reduce stacking. respect another funder funded the file first and ate up the leverage if its max'd out. Then we may stand a chance, the big guys are a machine with limitations due to size in customer support. This is where we can shine. Provide 1 on 1 care that no huge enterprise can do and handle.

or we can continue to be greedy as a whole and watch the industry get taken from us.

As I have been hammering home to people constantly in this forum for a few weeks, it is essential to niche down, understand an industry well and then tailor yourself to helping them and their specific funding problems. It lets you differentiate when big money steps in and wants to dominate a market. Why do you think I niched down to MCA as a marketing agency? I ain't competing with the big boys by trying to go after every business who needs marketing and inbound help. Same deal here. And also, with the AI bull**** spreading, people keep ruining their brand by pushing all their content and business assets through the same 4 AI chatbots, with the output for everyone and their mom becoming generic drivel by the day. Write stuff by hand for gods sake. It doesn't kill ya.

[B2 Systems]

Just to elaborate on these charts and what some of the opinions on the forum has been. The charts doesn't consider how the consumption of a product happened, it only considers that it happened.

Progressive charts are used in every industry to measure growth and patterns. There is no doubt that MCA is growing, more unsecured/revenue based financing is being provided than ever before.

Banks are providing less credits therefore the demand has to be satisfied. You must also consider that more businesses are being created than ever before which means RBF is experiencing a boom, maybe getting closer to a transformation than being "dead". If you're looking at a default rate chart, that answers a different question. Another thing to consider is that our industry is very bad at reporting data, therefore we must assume that the funding amount is much higher than reported and most of the ones who do not report are the smaller funders who provide super high risk offers.

This happens in every major industry especially when technology and well capitalized players enter the space. This is simply signaling that the industry is getting to a size that is attracting more structured and mature organizations. The companies acting nefariously will soon be smoked out, move on to an industry with less spot light, or simply wont be able to operate anymore due to the structures and technologies being put in place. The ceiling for new funders and new brokers is also moving higher, therefore smaller companies who do not adapt and improve will feel the pressure.

[helpingmca]

Some words of wisdom there sean-nayyar. Rightsizing to the right niche is key.

Also, totally with you on these AI chatbots colonizing the internet and our phones nowadays.... jeez.

- Written by an AI chatbot

(jk)

[mcadata]

MCA is nowhere dead, Banks aren't approving, SBA has halted operations, people need capital to operate in many forms, from 500 credit score to 800, they need it more than ever before. MCA is only exploding and going to get better and better. Defaults high, sure, makes sense, but leads us to Underwriting doing their due-diligence, and don't fund a stacked-up merchant that has 6 positions and up. MCA is the best industry around. Those who know it best, do it the best.

[ADVENTUREFG]

MCA is nowhere dead, Banks aren't approving, SBA has halted operations, people need capital to operate in many forms, from 500 credit score to 800, they need it more than ever before. MCA is only exploding and going to get better and better. Defaults high, sure, makes sense, but leads us to Underwriting doing their due-diligence, and don't fund a stacked-up merchant that has 6 positions and up. MCA is the best industry around. Those who know it best, do it the best.

Mca is shifting towards automation and better quality deals. Fine and dandy for what 5 months? if the economy doesn't correct those A paper files get stacked and end up being F paper.
Theres on average 36.2 million business's active in the usa at any given time. 6.4 million have employees.
Theres 5,000+ broker shops out there. How long before the entire 36.2 million get spammed 1000 times and gets reworked into a F paper file.

I truly believe of course a better economy but also a community effort is what's needed to bring back the glory day.
Of course we are still making money, or we wouldn't be here but its nowhere near where we could be making.

[sean-nayyar]

MCA is nowhere dead, Banks aren't approving, SBA has halted operations, people need capital to operate in many forms, from 500 credit score to 800, they need it more than ever before. MCA is only exploding and going to get better and better. Defaults high, sure, makes sense, but leads us to Underwriting doing their due-diligence, and don't fund a stacked-up merchant that has 6 positions and up. MCA is the best industry around. Those who know it best, do it the best.

banks arent approving, sba halted operations, but now we have big companies like square and shopify capital that have access to distribution networks (their userbase and customer base are small business owners). so they have the lead gen side covered. they dont need leads. their userbase is their leads. that drops their marketing costs to zero. all they need is to offer their userbase money in their backend interface. it's game over as I see it. I don't see how y'all are competing with that. (unless you're funding the scraps that got rejected by their backend)

[Yankeeman07]

MCA is nowhere dead, Banks aren't approving, SBA has halted operations, people need capital to operate in many forms, from 500 credit score to 800, they need it more than ever before. MCA is only exploding and going to get better and better. Defaults high, sure, makes sense, but leads us to Underwriting doing their due-diligence, and don't fund a stacked-up merchant that has 6 positions and up. MCA is the best industry around. Those who know it best, do it the best.

SBA has not halted operations - they have expanded for qualified candidates.
The demand for growth capital is at an all time high - but they # of merchants in the the sub 600 FICO is growing. (IMO)

[ADVENTUREFG]

Soo much false information going around