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Professional Merchant Advance Capital LLC, provider of merchant cash advances, is working with EZCheck to provide merchants with cash advances based also on check volume and not solely on credit card transactions, the companies announced Jan. 30. Most cash-advance companies base the amount advanced to a merchant on the merchant's anticipated credit card receivables, but Professional Merchant also includes check transactions when calculating how much to offer merchants. Merchants can process their repayment of the cash advance to Professional Merchant using Houston-based EZCheck's check-services products, according to Don Singer, EZCheck vice president of sales and marketing. The partnership creates "additional merchant accounts for us and additional customers for" Professional Merchant, says Singer. A spokesperson for Hauppauge, N.Y.-based Professional Merchant previously told CardLine sister publication ISO&Agent that resellers of check-based cash-advance services can use any transactions that can be converted to an electronic format, include automated clearinghouse and electronic benefits transfer transactions (CardLine, 9/11/08). David Fish, senior analyst at Maynard, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group Inc., says he knows of no vendor other than Professional Merchant that includes check transactions. "That doesn't necessarily mean there aren't other [cash-advance companies] already thinking along these lines, or doing it," Fish said in September. Professional Merchant did not return requests for comment by CardLine deadline.
