(11 August 2017 – United States) Payment company, PayPal has agreed to acquire online lending firm Swift Financial to help bolster its merchant lending business, Working Capital.
The acquisition will allow PayPal to offer loans to the larger businesses that process payments through its platform and better provide credit to firms that are not yet users of its services, the company said on Thursday.
Founded in 2006, Swift Financial extends credit to businesses through loans and advances.
PayPal Working Capital has been lending to smaller merchants since 2013. The company determines credit-worthiness and lends against the payments it process for businesses. Since its inception, PayPal Working Capital says it has lent more than US$3 billion to 115,000 small businesses in loans of up to US$125,000 since inception.
The deal enables PayPal to offer term loans of up to US$500,000 to larger merchants and take advantage of Swift Financial’s data capabilities to lend to companies that may not be long-time clients.
“This is an area where customers have been asking for more,” said Darrell Esch, vice president and commercial officer of global credit at PayPal.