Amazon has been ramping up its small loans business, with the company announcing today that it has loaned more than $1 billion to around 20,000 merchants on its platform in the past 12 months alone.
This figure represents a third of the total amount the ecommerce titan has loaned through its Amazon Lending program since its inception back in 2011.
Amazon Lending is available on an invite-only basis to small businesses that sell goods through Amazon’s online marketplace. It was initially only available in the U.S. before it was expanded to Japan, followed by the U.K. in June 2015.
