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Bernardo Martinez

Executive

PPP
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
PPP
Updated

The profile

Career small-business-lending executive who ran Funding Circle's U.S. arm when it became a PPP lender of record, then returned to PayPal.

Identity and role

Bernardo Martinez is a small-business-lending executive. At the time of the March 24, 2020 letter he was U.S. Managing Director of Funding Circle, the U.S. arm of the London-listed online small-business lender; he later returned to PayPal (the source for his current title is cited, but we do not have a copy).

Biography

Funding Circle named Martinez its U.S. Managing Director in an announcement dated March 13, 2018. He succeeded co-founder Sam Hodges, who became Chairman of Funding Circle USA. Martinez joined from PayPal, where he had led U.S. small-business lending. Before PayPal he was Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Banco Dominicano del Progreso in the Dominican Republic, and earlier spent about six years at Bank of America in its small-business banking operation (2018 announcement). An MBA from Duke's Fuqua School is cited to Crunchbase; we do not have a copy.

Pandemic relief role

Martinez signed the fintech coalition letter (published under OnDeck's banner) as "Bernardo Martinez, U.S. Managing Director, Funding Circle" (archived letter text; signatories register). Dated March 24, 2020, the letter asked Congress to give Treasury flexibility to inject "upwards of $500 billion" into small businesses through banks, credit unions, online lenders, and payroll processors, and stated: "We seek no gain from this crisis. Our only aim is to protect the millions of small businesses that we are proud to call our customers."

Unlike the marketplaces on the letter, Funding Circle's U.S. business was a PPP lender of record in its own right. It made loans under the entity name "FC Marketplace, LLC (dba Funding Circle)," which appears in the SBA's PPP loan data. Funding Circle Holdings' full-year 2020 results reported that the U.S. business originated $474 million of PPP loans from May through August 2020.

Martinez stepped down from the Funding Circle role around May 2020, near the height of that PPP lending.

We found no personal enforcement action, fraud charge, or civil settlement involving Martinez in the public record. Funding Circle/FC Marketplace participated directly in PPP as a lender of record and reported hundreds of millions of dollars of PPP originations.

Funding Circle announced its PPP lending launch in spring 2020, and Alternative Credit Investor reported in May 2020 that Martinez was stepping down after two years and returning to PayPal in a global role.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Martinez returned to PayPal (Alternative Credit Investor); his current title there is cited to Crunchbase and LinkedIn; we do not have copies. Funding Circle, meanwhile, exited the United States: it agreed in June 2024 to sell its U.S. business to iBusiness Funding, a division of Ready Capital Corporation ; the completion date and license surrender are covered in the Funding Circle profile.

Sources held in this archive

Research notes and dossiers

  • Source Note: WebBank and PayPal LoanBuilder Five Years On

Original source documents and archived captures

  • Samir Desai — global Funding Circle founder while Martinez ran the U.S. arm.
  • Noah Breslow — fellow online-SMB-lending chief in the PPP lender-of-record cohort.

Sources

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