With membership expanding from 11 companies to 16 companies in the last 60 days, the North American Merchant Cash Advance Association is becoming the voice of the emerging industry, its leader says.
“The association’s catching on,” David Goldin, the group’s president and also CEO of AmeriMerchant, a New York-based advance provider, tells PaymentsSource. “(The association) now represents over 95% of the significant merchant cash advance providers in the marketplace.”
As a result of that momentum, phone calls from general-interest and trade publications seeking comments from the association have been increasing in the last six months, Goldin says. “We’re becoming the only true voice for the industry,” he contends.
The association’s apparent success could benefit portions of the merchant-acquiring industry, observers say. ISOs and agents collect a share of the proceeds for signing up merchants to receive merchant cash advances. Merchants that receive the advances as a lump sum generally repay by assigning a portion of their card receipts to the advance company.
Advance providers have been joining the association because the group alerts them to problem merchants and helps prevent merchants from securing advances from more than one provider at a time, Goldin says.
The association also publicizes a list of best practices designed to raise standards and protect merchants, he notes. It plans to release data on merchant demand for advances, he adds.
Advance providers formed the association four years ago, partly because New York-based Capital Access Network, which operates an advance company called AdvanceMe, sued other advance companies for patent violations, Goldin says.
The courts ruled the AdvanceMe patent invalid, but the company has not joined the association, Goldin says notes. At press time AdvanceMe officials had not responded to a PaymentsSource message seeking comment.
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