American Express has announced the acquisition of “substantially all” of Kabbage, an online lender to small businesses and consumers. Here’s what you need to know about the acquisition and how it will impact Amex’s business model.
Details of the Kabbage Acquisition by Amex
Kabbage is an Atlanta, GA-based financial technology company specializing in providing business funding options to businesses and individuals. The organization’s acquisition by Amex will see 80% of its cash flow assets being acquired by the banking powerhouse, including:
- The full Kabbage team
- All the company’s financial technology products
- The company’s data platform
- All other intellectual property built for small businesses
Kabbage’s fintech products include access to flexible lines of credit, online bill payment, cash flow visualization tools, e-gift certificates, and the ability to centralize funds via business checking accounts.
“Help More Small Businesses Succeed”
In announcing the new deal on social media, Kabbage said the acquisition would allow the company “to develop and deploy a world-class platform that empowers small businesses.”
This sentiment was later elaborated on in a joint statement. Kabbage CEO and co-founder, Rob Frohwein, stated that:
At Kabbage, we have always made the success of America’s small businesses our primary objective.
We have built a technology and data platform that provides them with the kind of capabilities and insights often reserved for larger businesses. By joining American Express, we can help more small businesses succeed with a fully digital suite of financial products to help them run and grow their companies.”
Amex “Expanding Beyond Card Products”
American Express, for its part, believes the new acquisition will help the payment giant expand into new marketplaces. Anna Marrs, President of Global Commercial Services at American Express, stated that:
American Express has been expanding beyond our industry-leading commercial card products to offer our business customers a growing set of payment and working capital solutions.
This acquisition accelerates our plans to offer U.S. small businesses an easy and efficient way to manage their payments and cash flow digitally in one place, which is more critical than ever in today’s environment.
By bringing together Kabbage’s innovative technology and talented team with our broad distribution capabilities and over 60 years of experience backing small businesses, we can better help our customers successfully emerge from this challenging period and beyond.”
Kabbage Purchase a Juicy Opportunity for Amex
The Kabbage acquisition is the latest step by American Express in its goal of becoming an essential partner to small businesses. This strategy involves the integration of a broad range of payment, cash flow and financial management tools within the Amex network.
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