At SPARK, we’re obsessed with SBA. We’ve seen its inner workings. We’ve built a product centered around it. We understand the positive impact SBA lending can have on our communities, particularly in challenging times.  That’s why we challenge anyone to find a platform better suited to SBA than SP...

There’s a cost to everything. Sometimes, we’re willing to pay more for a greater reward. Other times, we don’t see the hidden costs until it’s too late.  As an inherently risk-averse industry, banking has held out on digital transformation far longer than other sectors. The potential costs a...

Adaptability isn’t something we take for granted anymore, especially after the pandemic. Companies were made or broken based on their ability to quickly scale and conduct business digitally. Lending was one of the most impacted industries — not only because of the millions of business loans it st...

Life is a little different now than it was just two years ago. Perhaps you do more shopping online or you have to wear a mask when you go to the doctor.  Lending has changed too. But was it for the better? And if we continue down a more digital path, can regulators even keep…

Banking has really changed its tune in the last few decades. The sector previously sparked images of cold, impersonal experiences that were clunky and intimidating (remember the bank scene in Mary Poppins?). Today, bank ads feature diverse people, imagery from everyday life, and even celebrity en...

If you’re a sports fan, you’ve probably heard the term “most valuable player” or “MVP” before. In software development, MVP stands for “minimum viable product,” signifying a version of a product with just enough features for early customers to test it out and provide feedback for future developme...

Budgeting is typically the same in every industry. It runs on a 12-month cycle and begins to take shape around Q3. By Q4, budgets are finalized, and in the first half of the year, everyone executes, making small adjustments along the way.  Banks generally follow the same model with an emphas...

For too long, discrimination, unequal access, disinvestment, gentrification, and other types of market failures have led to banking and credit deserts in underserved, urban, and rural communities. Mainstream players in a scale-oriented financial industry have traditionally overlooked low income c...

We hear it from lenders all the time: “If the borrower would enter more information the first time, the lending process would be so much easier.”

The past two years have been a whirlwind for the lending industry. 2020 gave us overworked systems caused by droves of PPP applications, while 2021 was filled with forgiveness applications to process while managing a “new normal” of remote work and digital transformation. But the change isn’t ove...