Loan Stars Episode 5: Breaking Down Texas’s New Business Finance Laws with Kate Fisher

In this episode of the Loan Stars Podcast, hosted by Celeste Deal Maunoir, the Chief Sales Officer at ARF Financial, and co-hosted by Bob Lapidus, ARF’s Senior Vice President General Counsel, the focus is on Texas House Bill 700. Signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in June, this bill introduces significant regulatory shifts in commercial sales-based financing transactions, commonly known as Merchant Cash Advances (MCA). This makes Texas the 11th state to adopt a commercial finance disclosure law. The podcast discusses the unique aspects of the Texas bill, such as prohibiting most ACH debits, banning confessions of judgment, and necessitating a validly perfected security interest in a recipient's deposit account for auto-debit mechanisms. The guest speaker, Kate Fisher from Hudson Cook, LLP, provides her expertise on the challenges and implications for both financing providers and businesses in Texas. The discussion also touches on broader regulatory trends and their potential impact on the availability of capital for small businesses and the practices of commercial loan brokers.