Topic
Financing provided to small and midsize businesses, spanning bank credit lines, SBA-backed loans, and embedded or fintech lending products.
Defaults on pandemic EIDLs have passed 30%, with $75.2bn charged off, according to a congressional report the Guardian cites. Borrowers above $200,000 guaranteed the loans personally, so a default can reach their own assets.
Reality
SBA approved $32.4 billion of 7(a) loans in fiscal 2026, a double-digit drop, then tightened its lending rules again last week. Acquisition loans carry most of the new burden, and fiscal 2027 opens under stricter rules than the year that shrank.
Reality
Stripe agreed to buy Parafin, which has lent to more than 60,000 businesses through software platforms such as DoorDash, Jobber and Mindbody. The deal widens a lending business Stripe already runs and leaves open how much of the credit risk it will hold.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality
U.S. Bank has trained more than 600 business bankers to court manufacturers, chasing bigger working-capital lines and more SBA lending. Rival lenders are making the same pitch as Washington sweetens SBA terms for the sector.
Reality
Chase's coming report counts nearly $10 trillion of assets and roughly 12 million businesses in transition over the next decade, with 8% of owners advanced in succession planning. McKinsey counts six million transitions.
Reality
Nium aims to pre-fund only 50% of its payments in fiat and time the rest with stablecoins, its treasury VP said, as a Fed hike makes fronting cash costlier. Kapitus's operating chief expects a second hike before the end of 2026, and Nium's treasurer says technology investment can wait while funds go to liquidity.
Reality
Nearly 500,000 delinquent COVID EIDL loans moved from the SBA to Treasury collection this spring, where a fee of 28 to 32 per cent lands on balances written at 3.75 per cent over 30 years. Many owners learned of the transfer from the bill.
Reality
A UNSW-led study builds its climate exposure measure from US temperature records alone, then finds the banks carrying more of that exposure wrote about 10 percent fewer small-business loans in median-risk counties before any losses landed.
Reality
Lendistry took seven years to lend $98 million to airport concessionaires. East West has now committed a facility about that size, plus an accordion. That makes the bank's credit committee the pacing constraint.
Reality
The executive order naming the CDFI Fund for elimination reached B:Side Capital on a Friday evening and left about three days to produce a plan, so what filled the gap was a written commitment rather than a values statement.
Reality