Finance as a Service - FaaS

Disruption, is a fascinating interest of mine, the magnitude occurring in energy, cars, Internet of Things and financial fronts is just amazing in its breadth and speed. On the energy front, U.S. growth has resumed due largely to the technical innovations of fracking and horizontal drilling. On the car front, Tesla, according to Forbes, has irreversibly distorted the auto industry. Homeowners with rooftop solar power and PPA financing (Power Purchase Agreements) are disrupting the very concept of an electric utility.

Disruption is always an interesting topic when I sit back and think. When I do that, I think of these examples of disruption along with more exciting upcoming disruptions. The financing community is in position as it has for far too long been beholden to the banks, whose finance is reserved for their top clients. They forget (or just do not want to know) that the SMEs provide and consume the good and services for/from their top clients which is why and how they get that big. As in Nature; "Without Plankton the Whale Dies".

E-Platforms have been the catalyst for several disruptions and has been gaining substantial ground in financing, of course it is easy to say Crowdfunding (Syndicate Room, Crowdcube, Kickstarter, etc.) but that does not address the corporate needs. As the banks cling on to their past, many new propositions are hitting the market mostly led by the Non-Financials. The Peer to Peer (P2P) platforms like Funding Circle, Faircent, Orchard and Assetz Capital are fast becoming the choice for some corporations. I would put forth that FaaS can be the identifier for Finance as a Service, which covers this group of e-platforms. FaaS or Finance as a Service, is what the non-financials are rolling into the market with, like a rainstorm into a draughted land. A corporate can be approved in a day and start receiving funding against their receivables within days. There are great bank alternatives in the market from Tungsten to Taulia, to UPS to Platform Black. Last week, I spent an afternoon at one FaaS company, Aztec Money, learning about their successful and fast moving approach to assist SMEs with the financing they need at better rates and with the speed and convenience that banks may daydream about, but instead is their nightmare...