PayPal Says It’s Loaned $500M To Small Businesses In The Past 18 Months

VENTUREBEAT: PayPal revealed today that it has loaned $500 million to small businesses since its launch of Working Capital a year and a half ago. The company says that it issues $2 million a day in loans just within the U.S. The loan service also operates in the U.K. and Australia.

Small business loans are a hot area of development. Square, another tool for accepting payments and running operations, has a similar service called Square Capital, which offers businesses a cash advance on future sales. The company has advanced just $100 million in cash to its merchants, according to CEO Jack Dorsey in a recent interview with Buzzfeed’s Mat Honan.

Supplying cash to small businesses is an easy way for services like Square and PayPal to deliver added value to their customers as they continue to compete. But a larger bulk of small business loans are happening through peer-to-peer lending platforms like Lending Club, which served up $1.63 billion in loans just last quarter.