Main Street Challenges and Policy Solutions

Why It Matters

Transparent, fair financing is essential for the health of local economies; policy reforms can prevent revenue‑seizure incidents and support resilient, community‑driven businesses.

Key Takeaways

• Small business financing remains opaque and costly for owners
• Merchant cash advances often lack consumer‑level disclosures and protections
• Lien complications can trap revenue, as seen with Shopify case
• FinTech advocacy pushes for APR transparency and borrower rights
• Community‑focused businesses can leverage crowdfunding for social impact

Summary

The panel convened by Louis Caditz‑Peck examined the financing hurdles confronting Main Street firms, featuring yarn entrepreneur Karida Collins, NCRC President Jesse Van Tel, and American FinTech Council director Ashley Urismaan.

Collins described a decade‑long financing saga that included a $1,000 family loan, merchant‑cash‑advance products from PayPal, Shopify and Square, and a WebBank loan that imposed weekly withdrawals. She highlighted how opaque terms and lack of APR disclosure left her cash flow vulnerable, especially when a lien on her Stripe‑processed sales froze $10,000 of revenue.

The episode sparked a viral Instagram plea that forced Shopify to intervene, revealing that the lien’s proceeds were applied to the loan balance rather than returned to the business. Urismaan cited the FinTech Council’s Small Business Owner Bill of Rights, which seeks mandatory APR disclosure and consumer‑level protections for commercial borrowers.

Experts argue that without standardized transparency, small firms will continue to face predatory financing and operational disruptions. Legislative action and FinTech‑driven reforms could level the playing field, enabling community‑focused enterprises like Collins’s Neighborhood Fiber Company to sustain growth and reinvest in local nonprofits.

Original Description

The small business economy, and the capital that fuels it, are changing in dramatic ways. Innovations in financing, new patterns of entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, and shifting market and policy dynamics are reshaping what it means to own, operate, and grow a small business in the United States. What is the future of the small business economy and access to capital during this time of profound change?

This discussion is one of several that took place as part of “The New Era of Small Business Finance: Access, AI, and Accountability,” a forum hosted by the Aspen Institute’s Business Ownership Initiative and the Responsible Business Lending Coalition on March 5, 2026. The event featured panels with policymakers, small business owners, advocates, lenders, and technologists on solutions to support responsible innovation and sustainable small business prosperity. Panels include:

The Changing Role of Small Business Ownership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77LFGl7n744

Innovations Driving Small Business Lending Forward: It’s Not All About AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvnZm-GTQa8

Main Street Challenges and Policy Solutions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7VC_7B1s3s

For more information, including speaker bios and additional resources, visit: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/the-new-era-of-small-business-finance-access-ai-and-accountability/

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aspeneop

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go: https://pod.link/1503944129

This second-annual event builds on our discussions at the March 2025 event, “Advancing Innovation and Fairness in Small Business Finance” at the Aspen Institute: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/advancing-innovation-and-fairness-in-small-business-finance/

To learn more about the Business Ownership Initiative, visit: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/business-ownership-initiative/

To learn more about the Responsible Business Lending Coalition, visit: http://www.borrowersbillofrights.org/