National Funding Review

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Date Established

1999

Location

San Diego, CA

Pros

• Early repayment incentives
• Relaxed credit score requirements

Cons

• Potentially high origination fees
• Opaque terms and fees

Overview

National Funding is a California-based company that provides funding to small businesses that cannot yet get a bank loan. Like many of its competitors, you won’t have to worry about collateral or having good credit.

On the other hand, you’ll be diving head-first into the breakneck-speed world of online business funding and merchant cash advances. This type of funding requires you to pay back a portion of your loan or advance each day, so the rates can be quite punishing. Before diving into the world of MCAs, we first encourage you to take a look at our short-term funding comparison chart and make sure you don’t qualify for more traditional sources of capital.

It’s a bit difficult to do risk-assessment on National Funding; they guard a lot of their information closely, which is a red flag. However, the company does have an established customer base and is in good standing with the Better Business Bureau.

Services Offered

National Funding provides the following types of business funding:

• Merchant cash advances
• Short-term business loans
• Medium-term business loans

Borrower Qualifications

National Funding offers fast, though expensive, business funding. Businesses with poor credit ratings can still qualify; companies like National Funding are usually more concerned with the amount of money you’re making in revenue than with your credit history.

To qualify for funding, you must meet these prerequisites:

If you’re seeking a merchant cash advance, you’ll also need to do at least $3,000/month in credit card sales.

Terms & Fees

National Funding’s website is fairly lean on details. Below, you’ll find the range of offers you can probably expect from this company:

National Funding, like most of its competitors, uses a flat fee structure. To figure out how much you’ll be paying back, you multiply the amount you borrow by the factor rate. In the case of National Funding, that typically falls between 15% – 30%. You should also expect to pay between 1% – 5% in origination fees.

All National products are unsecured, meaning no specific collateral is necessary.

Whether you get a loan or an advance, you’ll be making payments daily. In the former case, you’ll be making a fixed daily debit (though you may be able to get weekly terms on some products) via an automated clearing house (ACH). Cash advances are paid by holding back a percentage of your daily credit card revenue. There’s no fixed term in this latter case, as your repayments will fluctuate along with your cash flow.

National Funding offers early payoff discounts. If you pay off your balance (in full) early you’ll receive a 6 percent discount. You can take advantage of this offer at any time during your term.

Application Process

One of the bigger selling points of alternative funders like National Funding is their fast and simple application process.

You can begin your application online, or you can call sales directly to get things underway. Sales is easy enough to reach, so you can probably skip the online portion if you really want to. You’ll need to have three months of bank statements handy to prove your income.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

National Funding’s sales and web presence are par-for-the-course for non-traditional lenders. You’ll find some general information about the products National offers, but it’s not particularly useful for comparison shopping.

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to get much precise information directly from National’s personnel either. You won’t know specific rates until you apply and get a quote.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Reaching National sales staff is easy and painless. But as I mentioned above, I didn’t find my discussions with staff to be very informative so far as gathering information goes.

The majority of user reviews that address customer service are positive, however, so it’s possible you’ll have a better experience when you’re a paying customer.

You can reach National Funding at 888-733-2383, through their website, or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Negative Reviews & Complaints

National Funding has been around long enough to have a strong user-review footprint, and currently maintains an A+ rating on BBB.org. As it turns out, that footprint is mostly positive, though the company has received a fair amount of negative reviews as well. Here’s what users took issue with:

• Qualifying Can Be Difficult: Some customers complained that they received preapproval notices from National Funding but ended up not being qualified after going through the application process.
• Expensive: While National Funding’s business practices are well in line with the MCA industry in general, customers who don’t have much experience with them were shocked by the fees.
• Aggressive Sales Tactics: Several complaints involve unsolicited marketing calls and unsecured mailers from the company.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

As I mentioned above, overall, customers seem to have a pretty high opinion of National Funding. National Funding fares well on Trustpilot as well, garnering an aggregated rating of 9.3/10:

• Poor Credit Okay: The credit prerequisites for MCAs are low, making it easy to qualify.
• Quick & Easy: Compared to traditional lenders, the application and approval processes are really easy.
• Easy Renewals: If you’re making your payments, you can easily get more funding from National.

Final Verdict

National Funding is one of the older non-traditional lenders out there. The company has managed to retain a pretty positive reputation with its customers over the years. On the other hand, they play their cards a bit too close to the chest, making it difficult for prospective customers to do critical comparison shopping for their funding. All-in-all their rates aren’t too bad for an alternative lender, so long as you fall on the lower range of their factor rates and origination fees.

Want to know what other types of funding you might be eligible for? Check out our favorite merchant cash advances and small business loans.

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Chris Motola

Finance Writer at Merchant Maverick

Chris Motola is a writer, programmer, game designer, and product of NY. These days he's mostly writing about financial products, but in a past life he wrote about health care and business. He's a graduate of the University of Central Florida.

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