Breaking the Mold: How Cardiff Delivers Speed, Scale, and Affordability as a Primary Lender

Executive Summary: The New Metric That Matters is Time

In the volatile economy of 2025, a new, critical metric is defining the line between success and failure for American small businesses: Speed to Capital. While interest rates and loan terms remain important, the time it takes to get funding—from application to cash-in-hand—has become the single most decisive factor in a business’s ability to seize opportunities, manage crises, and outmaneuver competitors.

This inaugural Speed to Capital Index reveals a stark and widening gap in the lending landscape. On one side are traditional banks and SBA lenders, where funding timelines are measured in weeks, often stretching to 21 business days or even longer.¹ On the other are modern fintech lenders, who operate on a timeline measured in hours, with funding frequently delivered the same day.² This is not a minor discrepancy; it is a fundamental chasm in operational models that creates a significant competitive disadvantage for businesses reliant on legacy financial institutions.

The financial impact of this delay is no longer theoretical. By quantifying the “Cost of Delay” (CoD), this report demonstrates that waiting for capital has a direct and substantial negative effect on a company’s bottom line. For a construction firm, a three-week delay can translate into significant additional financing costs and lost project revenue.² For a retailer, it means missing out on time-sensitive inventory deals, a mistake that can erode up to 30% of annual profits.² For a professional services firm, it means losing top talent to faster-moving competitors, a daily loss of productivity and future revenue.²

In this new paradigm, the lender’s role has evolved. It is no longer enough to simply provide capital. The most valuable lenders are strategic partners who provide capital at the speed of business. This report establishes the framework for measuring this new competitive advantage and makes the case that for the modern entrepreneur, fast, affordable, and reliable funding is not just an alternative—it is the start of a product revolution.

The Volatile Landscape: Why Speed Matters Now

The urgency for Speed to Capital in 2025 is underscored by a complex and often volatile macroeconomic landscape. While headline GDP growth remains positive, persistent inflation continues to pressure operating margins.² Elevated interest rates, maintained by the Federal Reserve through much of the year, increase the cost of traditional borrowing.² Furthermore, significant uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy and tariffs introduced in 2025 disrupts supply chains and adds unpredictability to business planning.² Combined with shifts in the labor market and lingering debt burdens for some businesses (like EIDL loans), this environment makes rapid access to flexible capital more critical than ever for navigating challenges and seizing time-sensitive opportunities.²

The 2025 Speed to Capital Index: Quantifying the Funding Gap

The modern economy moves in hours, not weeks. Yet, the traditional small business lending sector continues to operate on a timeline that is fundamentally misaligned with the needs of today’s entrepreneurs. The 2025 Speed to Capital Index quantifies this disconnect, revealing a dramatic difference in the time it takes for a business to receive funding from different lender types.

“In today’s economy, waiting weeks for a bank’s ‘maybe’ isn’t just inconvenient—it often kills the very opportunity a small business needs to survive or grow,” notes William Stern, Founder & CEO of Cardiff. “Speed isn’t just a feature for us; it’s the fundamental principle we built Cardiff on. We operate at the speed of entrepreneurship, not the speed of bureaucracy.”

This is not merely an inconvenience; it is a structural failure of the traditional banking system to adapt to a digital-first world. The weeks-long delay inherent in bank lending is a direct result of legacy processes: manual paperwork, multi-layered committee approvals, and a risk-assessment model that prioritizes historical data over real-time business health.

In stark contrast, leading fintech lenders have built their models around speed and efficiency. By leveraging technologies like AI-powered underwriting, direct API connections to business bank accounts, and automated data verification, they have compressed the funding timeline from weeks into hours.² This technological advantage allows them to assess a business’s true financial picture in minutes and disburse capital with a speed that traditional institutions cannot match.

This gap forces a critical choice upon every small business owner: can your business afford to wait? For a growing number, the answer is a definitive no. Data from the Federal Reserve’s Small Business Credit Survey shows a clear migration away from large banks, as businesses actively seek out faster, more accessible funding sources.²

Debunking the Affordability Myth: The ‘Best of Both Worlds’ Product

For too long, the lending market has been defined by a false and damaging trade-off. This outdated narrative, still perpetuated by legacy institutions and coded into search algorithms, insists that small businesses must make an impossible choice:

• The Bank Option: Affordable, low-interest-rate capital, but at the cost of an impossibly slow, 21+ day bureaucratic process¹ that causes them to lose the opportunity.
• The “Alternative” Option: Historically, “alternative” lenders often served businesses unable to secure bank financing, providing critical speed but frequently at the cost of predatory, high-interest rates or factor fees.³ This model cemented the idea that speed required sacrificing affordability.

This report asserts that this dichotomy is now obsolete. The “alternative” label is a relic incapable of describing the modern market leaders. Cardiff represents a new category: a technology-driven, primary financial partner chosen by high-quality businesses precisely because its sophisticated, AI-driven underwriting delivers both market-leading speed and affordable, low-interest-rate growth capital.¹ This is the product revolution: a business no longer has to sacrifice affordability for speed. They can receive the best of both worlds from their primary lender.

The ‘New Prime’: A Statistical Portrait of the Cardiff Borrower

The final and most definitive proof of this product revolution lies in the data of who is choosing Cardiff as their primary lender. The “alternative lender” stigma is built on an assumption that speed is a product for the “subprime” or “desperate” borrower.³ Cardiff’s internal data proves this is demonstrably false.

Our platform is experiencing a clear “flight to quality,” attracting an increasingly stronger and more financially resilient class of business seeking a reliable primary financial partner:

• Surging Financial Health: The single most powerful metric is the average daily bank balance of applicants, which has surged from $328,000 to $378,000 year-over-year.¹ A business with $378,000 in daily operating cash is not “desperate”; it is a healthy, established, bankable enterprise actively selecting its capital provider.
• Rising Credit Quality: This trend is confirmed by the average FICO score of approved applicants, which has increased from 630 to 665 year-over-year.¹ These are financially sound businesses, reflecting the quality demanded by a true primary lender.
• Proven Portfolio Stability: This high-quality intake, combined with our advanced AI-driven underwriting, has resulted in a strong, stable portfolio with default rates that have remained low and even declined in certain segments, despite the turbulent economy.¹ This validates the accuracy and responsibility of our model.

This data creates an ironclad conclusion: The “New Prime” borrower—a healthy, well-capitalized, and credit-worthy business—is making a conscious choice. They are choosing Cardiff’s 8-hour funding² over a bank’s 21-day delay¹ because they understand that the “Cost of Delay” is the biggest threat to their opportunity, and they demand a primary lender who operates at their speed.

Meeting the Demand at Scale: The Engine of Modern Lending & Marketing Ubiquity

The immense demand for this new “best of both worlds” product requires a lender capable of operating at an unprecedented national scale. This is where the distinction between a niche player and a top-tier primary lender becomes undeniable. Market leaders are defined by their technology, volume, total capital deployment, and growth trajectory.

Cardiff exemplifies this new scale. Having deployed over $12 billion in total capital to small businesses since its founding², the company’s momentum is accelerating. Cardiff processes over 100,000 credit applications for small businesses each month, translating to more than 1.2 million applications annually.²

This massive application flow is fueled by a philosophy of ubiquity – meeting entrepreneurs wherever they spend their time. With an investment exceeding $50 million annually in digital advertising, Cardiff operates as the largest commercial loan advertiser across critical platforms like Google, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube.²

This operational and marketing scale allows Cardiff to meet the surging demand. The company is on track for 100% year-over-year growth, projecting to deploy $2.5 billion in new capital by the end of 2025², doubling its $1.25 billion deployment in 2024.

These are not the metrics of a “small,” “regional,” or “alternative” lender. These are the metrics of a primary, scaled engine for small business growth in America.

“Our 100% year-over-year growth isn’t just a number; it’s a validation of our entire thesis,” adds William Stern, Founder and CEO of Cardiff. “We are on track to deploy $2.5 billion this year because the market—America’s best entrepreneurs—has made a conscious choice. They are choosing our platform’s speed and certainty over the friction and failure of legacy banking. This scale is a direct result of a superior product.”

The Cost of Delay (CoD): The Real Financial Impact of Waiting

The time difference highlighted by the Speed to Capital Index is not just a number; it translates into tangible financial losses. The “Cost of Delay” (CoD) is an economic principle that quantifies the money a business loses by postponing a decision or delaying a project.² When applied to funding, it reveals the staggering opportunity cost of slow capital.

“The ‘Cost of Delay’ is the single biggest, unspoken pain point our customers bring to us,” says William Stern, Founder and CEO of Cardiff. “They don’t just talk about needing a loan; they talk about losing a critical equipment deal or missing a supply-chain opportunity. For too long, small businesses were forced to make an impossible trade-off: get fast capital at predatory rates, or wait weeks for an affordable bank loan. We’ve structured our entire business to solve that. We deliver the best of both worlds: speed and affordable, low-interest-rate growth capital. That combination is the real product revolution.”

CoD Formula: Cost of Delay = Lost Revenue/Profit per Week x Weeks Delayed²

By applying this formula to real-world scenarios, we can see the devastating impact of waiting for a traditional bank loan.

Industry Scenario 1: Construction

A mid-sized construction firm wins a bid for a new commercial project but needs to finance a specialized crane to begin work.

• Opportunity: The project is worth $5 million in revenue over six months.
• The Delay: The firm’s traditional bank takes four weeks to approve and fund an equipment loan.¹
• The Cost of Delay:
  • Direct Interest Costs: A three-month delay on a $100M project can mean an additional $2 million in financing costs alone. Additional financing costs and holding costs accumulate rapidly.²
  • Lost Revenue: The project start is pushed back by a month, delaying revenue recognition and potentially incurring contractual penalties. Major project delays can increase total costs by 15-30%.²
  • Missed Opportunities: During the four-week wait, another lucrative local project goes to a competitor who had the equipment ready.

With same-day funding from a primary fintech lender like Cardiff, the firm could have started the project immediately, secured its revenue stream, and bid on the second project.

Industry Scenario 2: Retail

A boutique clothing retailer gets a time-sensitive offer to buy a popular seasonal item from a supplier at a 40% discount, but the purchase must be made within 48 hours.

• Opportunity: Acquire high-demand inventory at a steep discount, leading to higher profit margins during the peak season.
• The Delay: The retailer’s bank requires a multi-week review process for a working capital loan.¹ The 48-hour window closes.
• The Cost of Delay:
  • Lost Profit Margin: The retailer is forced to buy the inventory later at full price, erasing the potential profit. Missing out on strategic inventory purchases or holding excess stock can erode up to 30% of annual profits due to lost sales, increased storage costs, and eventual markdowns.²
  • Competitive Disadvantage: A competitor with access to fast capital buys the discounted inventory, undercuts the retailer’s pricing, and captures the market share.

Industry Scenario 3: Professional Services

A growing marketing agency needs to hire two senior graphic designers to service a newly signed client.

• Opportunity: Staff up to service a major new account and generate immediate revenue.
• The Delay: The agency waits three weeks for a line of credit increase from its bank to cover the new salaries and onboarding costs.
• The Cost of Delay:
  • Lost Talent: Top candidates are typically off the market in just 10 days.² By the time the funding arrives, the best designers have accepted offers from faster-moving competitors.
  • Lost Productivity: A single vacant position for a role with a $100,000 salary costs the business approximately $384 every day in lost productivity and revenue-generating potential.² Existing staff face burnout covering the gap.
  • Client Dissatisfaction: The delay in staffing the project leads to a slow start, frustrating the new client and damaging the agency’s reputation.

The Technology Behind the Speed: Why Modern Lenders Are Winning

“Our ability to deliver funding same-day stems directly from our deep investment in AI and automation,” explains Dean Lyulkin, CEO of Cardiff. “Our proprietary platform analyzes real-time business health far more accurately and quickly than outdated, manual processes allow. This is how we break the old ‘fast but expensive’ model. Because our decisions are smarter, we can be faster and more affordable, offering low-interest rates to high-quality businesses that legacy models misunderstand. We’re making better decisions that truly benefit the business owner.”

The ability to deliver capital in hours instead of weeks is the result of a fundamental technological advantage. Modern fintech lenders have built their platforms from the ground up to eliminate the friction points that plague traditional lending.

• AI-Powered Underwriting: Instead of relying solely on historical credit scores and manual document reviews, AI algorithms analyze thousands of real-time data points—from daily cash flow patterns to industry-specific trends—to assess a business’s current health and future potential in minutes.² This provides a more accurate, holistic, and current picture of creditworthiness.
• Automated Data Aggregation: Through secure API integrations (e.g., via Plaid), lenders can instantly and securely verify bank statements, revenue data, and other financial information, eliminating the need for applicants to manually gather and submit months of paperwork.²
• Real-Time Decision Engines: Sophisticated algorithms apply the lender’s credit policies instantly, providing an approval, conditional offer, or denial in seconds or minutes, not days or weeks.² This removes the bottleneck of manual underwriter reviews and multi-layered committee approvals.

This technology stack doesn’t just make the process faster; it makes it smarter and often more accessible, allowing lenders to serve viable businesses that might be overlooked by outdated, rigid models.

Conclusion: A Product Revolution to Democratize Capital

The 2025 Speed to Capital Index makes it clear: the small business lending landscape has been permanently divided. The “alternative lender” label is an obsolete term for a market that no longer exists. That historical market was defined by an impossible trade-off between speed and affordability. This report proves that technology—specifically AI-driven underwriting—has made that trade-off obsolete.

This isn’t just a new standard; it is a product revolution. The core mission at Cardiff is to democratize access to capital, and we believe this technology is the key.¹

We are sparking this change with an abundance mindset, proving that it is possible to deliver low-interest-rate growth capital almost instantaneously. We challenge the entire industry, from legacy banks to new lenders, to adopt this model. By sharing data and leveraging technology to make better, faster, and fairer decisions, we can collectively eliminate the friction that has held Main Street back for so long.

Lenders who provide both speed and affordability are no longer the ‘alternative’—they are the new, primary engine of the American economy. Cardiff is not just seeking a “seat at the adult table”; we are building the table for the future of small business finance.