Notes on Specialty Finance

After reviewing Q2 2026 data, I'm seeing significant shifts in the merchant cash advance market. Institutional capital deployment reached $1.25 billion, approval rates hit 84 to 91 percent, and small businesses are increasingly choosing alternative financing. Here's my analysis of what these trends mean for the industry.

In this post, I share my Q2 2026 MCA market observations, reviewing recent Federal Reserve data, regulatory updates from the CFPB, and shifts in institutional participation.

I have been tracking the merchant cash advance market 2026 numbers closely. The data matches what I hear from business owners every day. The US merchant cash advance market is growing around 9 percent a year. Traditional bank lending to small businesses is growing about half that fast. The total market size for 2026 is projected at $35.6 billion. But the real story is not the dollar amount. It is the reason behind the growth. Owners are not turning to MCA because banks said n