There’s a new eBay Santander deal which will see Santander backed Asto offer finance to small businesses selling on eBay.
The blurb says that the idea is to offer cash flow loans to assist the 200,000 businesses trading on eBay to grow their operations and ensure that finance isn’t the reason that they fail.
“eBay is passionate about helping small businesses succeed. We help power over 200,000 British SMEs, helping them grow through access to 180 million consumers in 190 markets across the globe.
Our partnership with Asto is designed to help our business sellers efficiently access cash loans to help them expand and manage cashflow – our latest step in helping small businesses in the UK to thrive.”
– Paolo Levoni, Chief Operating Officer, eBay
Asto, only recently launched last year, is essentially a bookkeeping app which then added invoice financing. For them to strike a deal with eBay this early on is pretty impressive and it’s likely that the backing from Santander is what gave the credibility to made the eBay Santander partnership viable.
“I am excited by the opportunity for Asto, as a fintech start-up, to partner with eBay, a global ecommerce platform that shares our ambition to help small businesses grow and thrive.
Asto is built on the belief that no good business should fail for want of time, insight, support or access to finance. Working with eBay, Asto will empower small business owners with secure access to funds in a matter of minutes from their phone, versus traditionally several weeks.”
– Sigga Sigurdardottir, CEO, Asto
You can’t rush to sign up for an eBay Santander loan with Asto just yet, the service is expected to be launched later in the year. What eBay sellers will want to know is what are the repayment terms, what are the costs and how easy is it to access finance as and when it’s needed.
