Alternative finance: Merchant Cash Advances continue to grow

Merchant Cash Advances have helped, and continue to help, many types of businesses make changes and grow in the way they want to. It is a fairly new product but is growing in its popularity and evolving in the way it works all the time. Many have taken advantage of this product and keep coming back to it when they are looking for funding for their next project to help their businesses growth. But the product is evolving as its popularity grows. One new feature that has emerged is in the amount you can get as an advance. In the past the maximum you could raise was approx. what your credit card machine's monthly takings were, i.e. if your business took £20,000 a month and £4,000 of that was through your credit card machine, £4,000 would be the maximum you could raise. Now this has changed and you can get more; much more! A recent client of ours wanted to raise £24,000 for their business to give it a facelift. This client was offered £22,000 by their existing Merchant Cash Advance provider based on an average monthly card turnover of £25,000 and they came to us to see if we could get more. We observed that though they took £25,00 pm on cards, the business took a further £75,000 in cash and so we were able to negotiate with one provider to secure and offer for an advance of £49,000 for the client! Even though the repayment percentage was high at 35%, as a percentage of the client's overall monthly turnover, 35% of the card take was small and so this didn't affect their cash flow too greatly. The client was able to begin their facelift and do more work that they had anticipated due to the large advance. So how does this product actually work, what's the catch? No catch we're very clear with you right from the start. A Merchant Cash Advance uses your card machine to make the repayments so you barely have to think about them as they are happening with every transaction you make. Repayments are usually between 10%-20%, usually over a period of 6 months. If you were on a repayment of 20% and you had a transaction of £100 go through your card machine, £80 of that will go into your account as usual and £20 will go to repaying your advance. If you have a couple of months where takings are higher than usual, then great, you pay the money back quicker. However if you have an unexpected bad couple of months of takings (god forbid), then not to worry, you pay them back just within your own time at the same rate with no late repayment charges. No pressure which is great in this current climate and you could receive the advance after just 48 hours. So whether you're a garage looking to buy more supplies as your demands have risen, a hairdresser that needs a new sink as the last one broke or a restaurant wanting to give their place a facelift, a Merchant Cash Advance could help you. So what are the facts and requirements for a Merchant Cash Advance?:

• It's unsecured
• No application fees
• No early or late repayment charges
• Have got at least one year left on the lease of the business
• Minimum of £3.5k on credit card machines
• Repayments between 10%-20%
• Not necessary to change credit card machine provider
• Could receive the advance after just 48 hours

To find out more either call us on 0845 1260350 or visit our Merchant Cash Advance enquiry page to complete the contact form and we'll call you back.