eBay Wants to Lend You Money

eBay wants to lend you money. The online marketplace is stepping into the gap that's opened as commercial banks have become reluctant to lend to small business owners by beefing up its offer of lines of credit to users of its PayPal service. "It's going from a technology company to a financial services company," said Gil Luria, analyst at financial services and investment firm WedBush. eBay's PayPal, which it bought in 2002, has had an invitation-only pilot program for small business credit since last fall, but it recently launched the offer more broadly under the name PayPal Working Capital.