Glossary
Merchant cash advance
Also called: MCA, purchase of future receivables
One-sentence definition
A merchant cash advance is a financing product in which a funder purchases a portion of a merchant's future receivables in exchange for an upfront sum, typically repaid through daily or weekly withholdings from the merchant's deposits.
Key takeaways
- Not a loan in the traditional sense — structured as a purchase of future receivables.
- Repayment is a daily or weekly fixed amount or percentage of receivables.
- Funder underwriting depends heavily on bank-statement analysis.
- Common for SMBs that cannot access traditional bank financing.
Why it matters for MCA underwriting
The MCA product is the central context for everything Vyaso does. Understanding the product helps underwriters and ISOs read what is at stake when a file is risky.
How Vyaso detects merchant cash advance
This is a category page, not a detection layer. Vyaso supports MCA underwriting end-to-end with the nine detection layers and adjusted-revenue scoring.