• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 3, 2015

China's Alibaba.com has formed a partnership with Lending Club, a U.S. lending marketplace that makes working capital available to U.S. small businesses through a peer-to-peer network. The move follows a similar agreement between the lender and Google in the United States, but this one focuses on U.S. companies that are sourcing products from China.

Supporting the venture, Alibaba.com, owned by Alibaba Group, introduced the service e-Credit Line powered by Lending Club, allowing U.S. companies to apply online at the site for credit lines of $5,000 to $300,000 to finance purchases of goods from Chinese manufacturers and other China-based suppliers who have virtual Alibaba.com storefronts.

"Our mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere," said Michael Lee, Alibaba.com’s global marketing and business development director, in a prepared statement. "We want to make financing as efficient as possible for the millions of U.S. buyers that do business through Alibaba.com."

The company said e-Credit Line will let U.S.-based small business apply in less than five minutes online and obtain a line of credit from $5,000 to $300,000 to make a payment to a supplier for purchases on Alibaba.com. The line of credit matches repayment terms to the cash flow cycles of the business, vets suppliers and shipments, and even transfers the funds directly to the supplier. Monthly fixed interest rates start at 0.5%.

Google launched a similar program in January for its reseller partners in the United States. The partner network includes Google for Work, which has built a network of more than 10,000 partners in recent years, including resellers, consultants and system integrators.