How Technology is transforming Lending and shaping a new era of small business opportunity

Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy. They are the biggest job creators and offer a path to the American Dream. But for many, it is difficult to get the capital they need to operate and succeed.

In the Great Recession, access to capital for small businesses froze, and in the aftermath, many community banks shuttered their doors and other lenders that had weathered the storm turned to more profitable avenues. For years after the financial crisis, the outlook for many small businesses was bleak. But then a new dawn of financial technology, or “fintech,” emerged.

Fintech entrepreneurs recognized the gaps in the small business lending market and revolutionized the customer experience for small business owners. Banks scrambled to catch up. Technology companies entered the market and new possibilities for even more transformative products and services began to appear.

In Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream, Karen G. Mills focuses on the needs of small businesses for capital and how technology will transform the small business lending market, one historically plagued by frictions. New streams of data have the power to illuminate the opaque nature of a small business’ finances, making it easier for them to weather bumpy cash flows and providing more transparency to potential lenders.

An ambitious book grappling with the broad significance of small business to the economy, the historical role of credit markets, the dynamics of innovation cycles, and the policy implications for regulation, Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream is relevant to bankers, fintech investors, and regulators; in fact, anyone who is interested in the future of small business in America.