Amazon Banks On Its $3 Billion Loan Club

Over the past year, in particular, it seems that Amazon is untouchable. Credit cards. Prime Day. Cloud computing. TV shows. Bookstores.Now, as Wall Street focuses on Amazon's announced acquisition of Whole Foods, there is another component of the Amazon empire that may start to garner more attention. Over the past year, Amazon Lending has made more than $1 billion in small business loans to sellers on its marketplace. Since 2011, when Amazon launched its lending business, Amazon has made more than $3 billion in small business loans to more then 20,000 Amazon sellers in the U.S., United Kingdom and Japan.