Core Principles
Signature Company is transforming how small businesses access capital through lending and technology innovation. We are committed to establishing industry best practices and standards that ensure that small businesses are able to secure financing in a fair, efficient, and transparent manner so that they can get back to what they do best: growing their businesses, hiring workers, and fueling the economy. In support of this mission, we establish here key principles that underpin how we engage with our small business customers.
Offering Responsible Business Cash Advance
We are committed to building a sustainable and scalable model of small business financing that does not require public support or subsidy and that enables small businesses to grow and thrive.
Our advanced technology and underwriting platform enables small business customers to efficiently obtain responsibly-priced and right-sized short-term capital to help them grow, avoiding opportunity costs of long searches and the cost commitments of long-term financing. Our pricing also requires that we adequately cover our costs and permits us to continue to invest in our business. As has been demonstrated by steadily decreasing rates, we remain committed to responsibly sharing efficiency and cost-savings with our customers through lower prices. We similarly work to ensure that our advance offers are appropriately-sized according to a business’s performance and ability to repay, and are an appropriate fit for their intended use. Our MCA products enable our small business customers to establish and build their business credit while growing their businesses, and the first $1 billion that we lent to small businesses is estimated to have generated more than $3.4 billion of economic activity.¹
Providing Truthful, Transparent, and Complete Information
We are committed to ensuring that our small business customers are provided truthful, transparent, and complete information about our advances so that they can make prudent and informed decisions.
Signature Company advances are best-received and utilized by our customers when they are able to easily understand the Advances terms and determine whether the product is the correct fit for their needs. Accordingly, we have tailored our disclosure forms to provide transparency, ensure readability and accessibility, and help our small business customers understand and compare the total costs and terms associated with their advances. We remain committed to accurate and effective disclosure and will continue to consider new approaches to furthering this goal.
Enhancing the Customer Experience
We are committed to ensuring that all aspects of a customer’s Signature Company experience meet the highest standards of service excellence.
To this end, we are keenly focused on providing our customers with the best user experience possible at all stages of interaction with Signature Company, both online and offline. We actively survey, monitor, and interact with our customers to understand their experience with us, and are dedicated to incorporating this feedback into our industry-leading best practices. This focus also extends to third-party intermediaries who engage with our small business customers: we have implemented industry-leading standards around how we partner with and monitor intermediaries and brokers who bring small business customers to Signature Company. Our policy relies on proper vetting, clear intermediary guidelines, ongoing monitoring, and consistent enforcement of third-party partner requirements.
Respecting Our Customers
We are committed to serving as a trusted partner, promptly and fairly responding to inquiries, and treating our small business customers with respect in all matters.
We greatly admire the determination and positive impact demonstrated by our small business customers on a daily basis. To do our part in supporting their success, we have a dedicated internal customer service group trained to provide excellent service. We understand the significant demands that small business owners face, and strive to be a trusted partner in helping our customers satisfy their objectives and grow their businesses. We take the same approach when our small business customers face difficulties: we do not permit delinquent or over-burdened borrowers to roll-over into a new advance, and we do not offer funds products built around late fees and penalties. We try to work with our customers facing financial hardship with the goal of placing them back on sound financial footing and giving them the opportunity to manage their outstanding commitments.
Focusing on Privacy and Data Security
We are committed to ensuring the privacy and security of our small business customers’ information and providing transparent disclosure of how borrower information is used.
Signature Company has received TRUSTe’s Privacy Seal signifying that our Privacy Policy and our practices have been reviewed for compliance with the TRUSTe program. A TRUSTe certified website is one that satisfies key data privacy and protection principles. Additionally, data security is of paramount importance to us, and we continuously work to enhance our security practices and resolve security vulnerabilities quickly and carefully.
Living by Our Signature Company Values
We are committed to attracting and retaining the best team of professionals in the industry.
We believe that the values of Signature Company – One Team, Switched On, Driven to Win, Focused Innovation and Striking the Right Balance – must first be reflected in the way we attract and develop our internal team. By retaining leading talent anchored in a culture of integrity, we are able to execute on our Guiding Principles and ensure service excellence for our small business customers.
We believe that adherence to our Signature Company Core Principles will enable us to responsibly expand access to capital for millions of small businesses. We succeed when our small business customers succeed, and we remain committed to doing everything we can to advance our shared interest.
¹Analysis Group, Signature Company Economic Impact Report (May 2014).
* Last Updated March 30, 2015
