Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
eBay has gone into the business of lending directly to its small business sellers, offering loans of anything betweeen £500 and £1m to SMEs.
In doing so, eBay is parking its tanks on the lawn of former subsdiary PayPal, which already offers quick loans to small business users.
PayPal has also been aggressively growing its lending business, with an outstanding loanbook of $2.7bn at the end of the first quarter.
>See also: Norah Coelho of PayPal Q&A: ‘Getting access to finance is incredibly important’
The move also puts eBay in competition with Britain’s less-well-capitalised high-street banks that target small business customers. By way of comparison, eBay’s $41bn market capitalisation is about 50 per cent higher than that of NatWest, the UK’s largest small business lender.
eBay says its same-day loan service is needed to help its 300,000 small business users bounce back quickly from the pandemic.
Nearly one third (31 per cent) of the UK’s 5.9m small businesses face going bust in under a month due to inadequate access to finance, according to research.
>See also: Qardus opens Islamic finance to small business for first time
Two in five (40 per cent) small business owners have been denied credit from banks,

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