Small Business Utopia

This chapter focuses on the future of small business lending and the transformations in the small business financial ecosystem. It envisions an ideal state, “Small Business Utopia,” where a small business’s entire financial life would be accessible through one application, allowing payments to be made or delayed, loans to be acquired, and financial advice to be obtained, at the push of a button. These innovations would enhance small businesses’ understanding of their cash flows and provide them with timely access to capital in ways that fit their needs. This chapter discusses the impact of big data and artificial intelligence on creating Small Business Utopia, and the challenges of integrating disparate information streams given the complexity of small business data. It also explores the benefits and risks of “black box” algorithms and machine learning including issues of bias in legacy data.