Business

While banks are still the leader in providing outside capital for small businesses, there have always been alternative forms of loan capital available, including credit unions, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), merchant cash advances, equipment leasing, and factoring products. This segment of the market has always been small compared to the $700 billion in small business bank credit assets. But Forbes discovered that since the onset of the financial crisis, and particularly during the economic recovery, there has been significant growth in innovative, online alternative funding for small businesses. There has been a 175% growth in the outstanding portfolio balance of online lenders each year, compared to a 3% decline in the traditional banking sector. As they grow, t...

The kidnapping and murder of Arkansas Realtor Beverly Carter has highlighted an ever-present fact for real estate agents: that meeting a prospective buyer in an empty home is potentially an extremely dangerous situation. Carter, 49, disappeared Sept. 25 from a house she was showing just outside Little Rock. Her body was found Sept. 30 in a shallow grave. Aaron Lewis, 33, has been arrested and charged with the crime. Authorities believe that he was a stranger to Carter. “We've just gotten lax,” Karen Crowson, former president of the Arkansas Realtors Association, told CNN regarding safety measures for showing houses. Crowson, who worked with Carter, said this comes as a bleak wake-up call. “We live in the South and tend to think everybody's a good person. We're not, by nature, suspicious...

This month, The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) cited data reported by Beacon Research and Morningstar Inc. to announce that second-quarter 2014 sales of annuities had hit their highest levels in three years. Overall annuity sales were driven as high as 59.9 billion in the second quarter, thanks to heightened consumer demand for guaranteed income and protection, especially in fixed annuities. According to the IRI, this number has risen by 9.9% since the same time last year. A 6.8% rise in overall annuity sales was recorded in the first quarter alone. Fixed annuity sales increased 7.6% over the first quarter and 41.6% over the past year to draw in $24.3 billion in the second quarter. Fixed index annuities were the top seller, hitting a quarterly record of $12.9 million in the second q...

The improving state of technology in the healthcare industry is usually seen as a positive factor, one that greatly increases a physician’s capacity to heal and help the sick. But what happens when that technology suddenly disappears or becomes inaccessible? As one tiny medical practice in northern Maine found out, the answer is almost a complete cessation of function -- and severe risk to their patients. In July, Full Circle Health Care was denied access to their online medical records after the vendor for their electronic storage system, CompuGroup, blocked their service over a billing dispute. These records included the medical histories of 4,000 patients, making it impossible for nurses and physicians to check necessary information, such as diabetes records, blood pressure logs, aller...

When it comes to making major renovations, hotels are looking to a source other than interior decorators these days. Now it's all about online review websites to guide new hotel furniture installations and improvements to the overall visit. Hotels in New York City are becoming more savvy when it comes to monitoring review sites such as TripAdvisor.com and Yelp.com, and booking sites like Hotels.com. Because customers are more likely to write their criticisms online than tell a manager, these websites have given hotel owners a new way to improve their services. Complaints on these websites can range from preferences that owners can't do much about, like the hotel's location, to other, more manageable issues, most commonly including water pressure in the shower, slow WiFi, uncomfortable be...

After several months of internal turmoil and PR disasters, the Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to rebuild with a 90-day plan. USA Today reports that former Procter and Gamble CEO and newly appointed Secretary of Veterans Affairs Bob McDonald plans to have his vision for the department in place by Veterans Day, November 11. McDonald, who has been in office for about 60 days, has referred to his goals as a "90-day plan" that will turn the department around, "build a more robust system" and start helping veterans again. "We need to rebuild trust with the veterans and the American public," McDonald said in a press conference in Cincinnati. According to USA Today, McDonald's plan for rebuilding the Department of Veterans Affairs contains several facets, including hiring more than ...

Although they may seem late to the game, Post-It brand notes has finally created a helpful note-taking app for mobile devices. However, it appears that for users, the wait may have been worth it; the new app, called Post-It Plus, blows its competitors out of the water with a futuristic ability to digitize real world Post-Its. That's right. With Post-Its Plus, you can upload that cluttered cloud of sticky notes on your desk to your smartphone. Free for iOS users, the app essentially lets them take a picture of their Post-Its, creates digital copies of the notes, and then organize the notes on a digital corkboard. Digitizing the notes is a pretty straightforward process. Users need to arrange their sticky notes so that none of them overlap, and then take the picture in decent lighting. Ot...

The city of Fargo, North Dakota may be best known as the titular setting of one of the Coen Brother's most famous films. However, thanks to a new program that will begin offering classes in October, Fargo may soon become known as something more: a hub for female web developers. Web development, which focuses on the design and creation of websites, is widely considered a thriving, profitable career in the field of information technology. The Bureau of Labor Statistics report that developers earn more than $60,000 and are in high demand, creating an excellent opportunity for qualified job seekers. However, Shannon Luney, a graphic designer from Moorhead, Minnesota reports that 20% or fewer of developers are women. For this reason, Luney and Megan Beck, a fellow graphic designer from Fargo, ...

Oshkosh Defense Corporation, a division of vehicle manufacturer Oshkosh, is currently competing against Lockheed Martin and AM General for a $31 billion military contract with the Department of Defense. Competition for the elite contract is fierce, and was even referred to by Lockheed Martin as being similar to "a knife fight in a phone booth." The purpose and main objective of the contract is to ultimately replace thousands of military Humvees with new tactical vehicles. Oshkosh was pleased to announce that their prototype, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, completed rigorous Department of Defense evaluations, including a review of the company's readiness to manufacture the elite tactical vehicles. Oshkosh claims its JLTV prototype was able to successfully demonstrate the ability to tra...

An in-depth New York Times investigation published last week has revealed that despite on-and-off recalls issued by Honda regarding Takata airbags, the company only reported a deadly flaw years after it first learned of it. The first incident relevant to the recalls happened in 2004, when an Alabama driver in a 2004 Accord was injured by an exploding airbag that shot out metal fragments. Honda and the air bag’s manufacturer, Takata, simply labeled the accident as an “anomaly.” The company neither issued a recall nor notified federal safety regulators. But in the past decade, 11 car companies supplied by Takata have recalled more than 14 million cars over the risk of ruptured air bags. (For scale, that’s approximately five times as many cars as General Motors has recalled due to its high...