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MO Technologies, one of the world’s fastest-growing FinTech companies, just launched a short-term merchant funding service that helps small businesses with month-to-month working capital: MO Instant Cash (www.moinstantcash.com). MO Instant Cash advances small business owners anywhere from $2,000 to $50,000.
Applying for an MO Instant Cash in advance is completely digital, quick and easy. The application doesn’t require a social security number or credit history – the only requirement is a business bank account. Within seconds, a business owner can complete the application and funds can be in the bank as quickly as the same day.
Using MO’s proprietary artificial intelligence technology and risk management system, MO Instant Cash never issues merchant funding in amounts greater than the business is able to repay. Each cash advance incurs a 4.99 percent flat service charge -- the lowest in the industry -- and can be paid back in 22 equal daily installments or 4 equal weekly installments after a 5-business day grace period.
MO Technologies is headquartered in Miami, Florida and operates in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Myanmar.
A Visionary Leader
Paolo Fidanza is Co-founder and CEO of MO Technologies. He has always worked to solve problems using technology – in automotive, social networking, healthcare and now financial. After he sold his last tech company (Opinit, LLC.) in 2016, he was looking for a new challenge. His friend Veronica Crisafulli was working at MasterCard on a software product that would extend credit to pre-paid phone users if they ran out of minutes/money on their account. This inspired the idea for MO Technologies and its proprietary credit scoring and risk assessment technology, which has been used in Latin America for more than three years to provide pre-paid cards and risk assessment for credit card companies and other financial institutions.
Offering Funding to Assist Small Business Owners
Paolo is the son of entrepreneurs - his father ran several food-related businesses and restaurants while his mother made and sold clothing. As small business owners, he was very familiar with the challenges of having enough working capital to grow a business while supporting a family. The vision for MO Instant Cash is to allow millions of small business owners who don’t have a credit history, or maybe have bad credit, to follow their dreams and access small amounts of capital to cover their expenses and allow them to grow, all while establishing good credit as the cash advances are paid back.
Mo is all about solving merchant working capital needs. MO Technologies wants to make it easy for them to access cash (not stressful). If they can pay suppliers efficiently, they can get better prices or discounts on bulk purchases; or they can hire extra salespeople to increase revenue.
Fostering an Advantageous Edge
Paolo says, “Analyzing my failures has been a great help in understanding how to avoid making the same mistakes. Over the years, I learned how to focus not just on technology, but more and more on the users of it, and how to teach our technology to understand our users, and not the opposite.”
Empowering Customers Through Best-in-Class Solutions
While other companies heap additional fees for late payments, MO Instant Cash offers a FlexPay feature that empowers the customer to control their payments. With FlexPay, a business owner can pause repayment for up to a week without penalty. The pause can be up to five separate days or can be grouped together to pause up to a full business week.
MO Technologies helps merchants see their business in a different way. One of the biggest challenges for small business owners is to get growth capital. Having access to same-day working capital provides them opportunities to do things they didn't know they could do before. They might borrow money to pay rent or bills, but MO wants to see it is used to grow their business. For example, a restaurant could stock up in preparation for a busy Thanksgiving and make the money back in sales because they won't have to turn customers away.
Winning Over Challenges
MO Technologies started to sell Mo Instant Cash through ISOs but quickly learned that there were many bottlenecks with that strategy; such as long sales cycles and limited access to customers which inhibited its marketing potential. Now with a direct to merchant offering, the company works closely with its customers to help them run a successful business.
MO Technologies’ proprietary credit scoring and risk engine is built to avoid defaults. Its technology uses artificial intelligence to learn from each customer and transaction, thus enabling greater efficiency. Because it gets smarter every day, the company can make improvements and changes to its rules. For example, MO started out making the minimum loan amount $100 but found that those customers had a more difficult time re-paying the loan back on time, so the company raised the minimum to $2000.
Significant Business Recognition
Paolo has been recognized as a Top CEO in the Fintech Category by both CV Magazine Awards 2019 and the Fintext Awards 2018.
Moreover, MO was nominated as one of the top 50 Technology Companies by Silicon Review Magazine.
Customers are praising MO for the way it helps businesses. A personal trainer in Texas has said: “MO Instant Cash has been the game-changer in my business taking off. An ingenious way to fund entrepreneurs and help us succeed.”
An appraiser in Seattle described MO Instant Cash as a creative way to help small business owners grow without fear of MCA predation!"
Outlining the Future of FinTech
The Fintech industry is a very fast-changing environment, at the moment. Paolo expects the way that we obtain credit, pay for things and transfer money to be totally different in the next 3-5 years. Financial inclusion and the cashless economy will become more and more a reality.
Guiding Emerging Business Leaders
Paolo advises young leaders to work hard, surround yourself with talented people who share your vision, be persistent and don't lose motivation when things do not go the way you expected. Being able to understand when you took the wrong direction and have the courage to change. The market is dynamic, and so needs to be a leader.