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ILPA in partnership with AEO: SMART Box Initiative

SMART Box™ Engagement Questionnaire

Welcome and thank you for engaging in the SMART Box™ initiative. The goal of this initiative is to present small businesses with a model disclosure of standardized pricing comparison tools and explanations, including various total dollar cost metrics and an APR that enables an “all-in” pricing comparison of financing options.
 
The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect feedback from a broad range of stakeholders in order to help inform the final model disclosure.  Following our national engagement period, we will publish a report of our findings along with the final model disclosure and accompanying principles.
 
NOTE: This questionnaire is organized to gather information about your involvement with small businesses, explore how and why small businesses access capital, and consider disclosure metrics that help a small business assess and compare financing solutions. The data collected from your survey results will only be published or publicly disclosed in an aggregated and anonymized format. We may also contact you directly to further engage on the SMART Box initiative.

 
6. Are you representing yourself or your organization in your engagement with the SMART Box initiative? *This question is required.
7. What kind of organization do you represent? *This question is required.
8. How do you or your organization serve or interact with small businesses? *This question is required.
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9. Are you or your organization involved in any way in helping small businesses secure capital? *This question is required.
10. If you or your organization provides services to small businesses, what average size small businesses do you serve (based on their annual revenue)?
11. What do you or your organization believe are the most common reasons a small business seeks out a business loan? Please rank the top 3 reasons. Order the items from the following list. First select an item with the spacebar to show a menu of possible ranking positions. Next, click a ranking position to order it in the ranked list. Note the menu will display more ordering options as you add items to the ranked list.
12. When it comes to securing a business loan, how important do you believe the following factors are in driving a small business decision to obtain capital? Please rate your response on a scale of 1-5, where 1 means "not important at all" and 5 means "extremely important".
Space Cell 1 (not important at all)2 (not that important)3 (neutral)4 (somewhat important)5 (extremely important)
Affordable total loan cost (interest and fees)
Loan APR (annual percentage rate)
Flexibility with loan repayment structure
Positive recommendations/reviews
Established relationship
Speed of funding
Reliable customer support
Easy application process/less paperwork
Transparent payback structure
Affordable interest rate/cost of funds
Robust security standards
Expected ROI (return on investment)
Transparent payment terms
Robust privacy and data security standards
13. When a business is trying to determine whether it has the cash flows to afford the cost of a 6-month loan with daily repayments, which of the following pieces of information do you believe are most important? Please rank in order of most important to least important. Order the items from the following list. First select an item with the spacebar to show a menu of possible ranking positions. Next, click a ranking position to order it in the ranked list. Note the menu will display more ordering options as you add items to the ranked list.
15. When a business is trying to determine whether it has the cash flows to afford the cost of a 5-year loan with monthly repayments, which of the following pieces of information do you believe are most important? Please rank in order of most important to least important. Order the items from the following list. First select an item with the spacebar to show a menu of possible ranking positions. Next, click a ranking position to order it in the ranked list. Note the menu will display more ordering options as you add items to the ranked list.
17. When a business is trying to compare different loan options, which of the following pieces of information do you believe are most important? Please rank in order of most important to least important. Order the items from the following list. First select an item with the spacebar to show a menu of possible ranking positions. Next, click a ranking position to order it in the ranked list. Note the menu will display more ordering options as you add items to the ranked list.
18. If you could only include 5 different pricing metrics in a model small business lending disclosure, which five would you select in order to help a borrower fully assess and compare credit products?
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19. Do you believe the 5 pricing metrics you selected above should be applied across the small business capital access landscape, including to those sources of capital that have generally not utilized all such disclosures (e.g. merchant cash advances)?
22. Are you currently inclined to support or adopt the SMART Box model disclosure assuming it includes many of the pricing metrics you selected previously (and definitely includes total loan cost and APR)?
23. Would you be interested in publicly indicating your support for or adoption of the SMART Box?
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