Accord Financial Corp., one of the U.S. and Canada’s leading independent commercial finance companies ("Accord") (TSX: ACD) has expanded their Canadian Asset Based Finance/Factoring senior management team to include Karim Habib as Managing Director, Business Development Ontario and Western Canada. His responsibilities will include expanding Accord’s brand presence as well as developing long-term business growth strategies. 

For almost 25 years, Phoenix Management Services has been collecting, tabulating, and analyzing the results from its “Lending Climate in America” survey to evaluate national lending attitudes and trends. Each quarter Phoenix’s proprietary “Lending Climate in America” survey is distributed to over 5,000 lenders nationwide. Results for the Q4/20 survey, which were received between 11/10/2020 and 11/24/2020, revealed optimism among lenders regarding the U.S. economy in the near-term. In the Q4/20 survey, their near-term expectations (i.e. how will the U.S. economy perform during the next six months) increased 33 points to a grade point average (GPA) of 2.05. However, lenders long-term expectations (i.e. how will the U.S. economy perform beyond the next six months) decreased 17 points to a GPA of 2.43. Our Q4/20 survey also indicates that lenders expect a) COVID-19 to cause slow growth and a choppy recovery for the U.S. economy, b) negligible effects in regard to a potential second stimulus, and c) that their customers will raise additional capital and make an acquisition in the long-term.