Amazon turns to Goldman to expand its business lending

Amazon and Goldman Sachs may soon be working together to provide loans to growing businesses. The online retailer and the banking giant are close to a deal that could transform the lending market for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Amazon has in fact been providing business loans since 2012 via its Amazon Lending service. Currently it has over $863m of outstanding loans on its books, provided exclusively to businesses that sell through its platform (and which account for more than 50 per cent of total trade across Amazon sites). Loan rates range from 6 per cent to 17 per cent. However, Amazon Lending has not yet proved to be one of the company’s success stories. Since 2016 its growth has been slowing, and it has pulled out of Japan. Critics have blamed its inadequate understanding of credit risk, along with the company’s over-reliance on its own, limited customer data