Keren Moynihan: Business Data as a Service’s Role In The Paycheck Protection Program

In an era where tech giants have increased customer expectations, lenders and private capital providers are challenged to offer complete and personalized solutions. Business data platform gives lenders the clearest view of their business customers. Boss Insights is exactly the sort of this business data platform that digitizes access to business customer information accelerating all parts of the lending cycle (acquisition, lending decisions, onboarding, portfolio monitoring, cross selling) to deepen relationships and grow revenues. In 2020, a key focus for lenders is the prospect of looming defaults. Boss Insights analytics detect early warning signals, allowing lenders to take manual or automated, rules based action, to counter these risks.

The platform accelerates small business and commercial lending from months to minutes. It provides Business Data as a Service with a single API to capture real time business financial data (Quickbooks, Salesforce, Stripe, etc.). The data aggregation platform is proven and trusted by innovative financial institutions globally. Boss Insights’ mission is to provide banks and credit unions with a real time understanding of their business client enabling them to offer customer delight.

Keren Moynihan is co-founder and CEO of Boss Insights. Keren has built a people-first company and recently Boss Insights was mentioned by CBC as a place where roles are fit to people.  Boss Insights has been awarded Top 25 Leader in Lending, been nominated for Entrepreneur of the Year (CSPN and The Timmy Awards) and AI Disruptor of the Year (IT World Canada). We asked Keren several questions on the new PPP funding round and how the Boss Insights platform can help companies to get access to the funding.

Are you excited about the new PPP funding round announcement? Why?

Keren Moynihan: Absolutely! Small businesses are the economic engine of societies. Each business is run by people, each an individual, each with families, whose lives depend on access to capital. PPP supports businesses’ ability to keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis – a lifeline for both businesses and their employees.

The second round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding includes some major tweaks aimed at fixing some of the issues with the first round. Boss Insights is particularly excited for two reasons:

1. The first week was open only to community lenders who support diversity and minority-owned small businesses including women-led businesses, many of whom were excluded or marginalized in the first round.
2. PPP2 will bolster truly small businesses with 10 or fewer employees, rather than larger ones. In the first PPP round, small vulnerable businesses were unable to get the funding because larger companies had claimed the funds before they could. Previously, banks were encouraged to give priority to bigger businesses over the smaller ones.

Did you take part in the previous PPP funding? How was it? What would you expect from the funding round in 2021?

Keren Moynihan: In the first PPP round, Boss Insights collaborated with Oracle to create the Boss CARES PPP platform for banks to accelerate PPP funding. The results were astonishing: CCBank reported 80% time savings per loan, 2x more processed applications and 90% increased digitization. CCBank’s Chief Lending Officer, Dustin Phillips mentioned, “We gained 2-3 years of new client relationships within 30-60 days”. Read the case study here.

What is the meaning of this program globally, in your opinion? Could the sum of financing be helpful to save businesses the program is focused on?

Keren Moynihan: The biggest issue for SMBs is capital. This program empowers lenders to provide capital to businesses.  For most businesses, employees are a large part of the expense, so this is an incredible opportunity.  For banks, credit unions and private lenders, it’s an opportunity for Boss Insights to collaborate to make the process take ⅕ of the time.  Imagine taking the effort of approving a business and making it happen in minutes, not days.  This is what banks, credit unions and private lenders have been able to achieve with Boss Insights by offering business lenders real-time financial data on their business customers…in minutes.

The move to prioritize community lenders came after criticism that the initial round of Paycheck Protection Program funding was unevenly and unfairly distributed. In your opinion, is this round better distributed across business owners?

Keren Moynihan: Yes. The second round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding includes some major tweaks aimed at fixing some of the issues with the first round. The first week was open only to community lenders who support diversity and minority-owned small businesses. Community lenders are specially designated institutions that focus on underserved borrowers, including women-led businesses and those run by Black, Latino and Asian owners and other minorities.

What can you recommend small businesses to bear in mind in the second round of funding?

Keren Moynihan: Banks find it overwhelming as they strive to make PPP an excellent customer experience for their business customers. There is a lot of confusion on how to decide which PPP platform will serve them best. Boss Insights recommends small businesses asking if their banks have any automation to help with getting their PPP loan approved. In the first PPP round, the SBA reported that 44% of completed forgiveness calculations were accepted, while banks using Boss Insights’ PPP platform reported 75% – a significantly higher PPP loan acceptance rate. Banks should not only be equipped with PPP technology that makes the application and forgiveness calculations easier for small businesses, but a platform that has also demonstrated a higher SBA acceptance rate in the first round.