Bank of America to Increase Small Business Loans

On Monday, December 14, Bank of America announced that it plans to lend at least $5 billion more to small and medium-size businesses in 2010 compared to 2009. CNN reports that CEO Kenneth Lewis made this pledge during the meeting of major banks with President Obama. B of A provided over $12 billion in loans to small businesses during the first three quarters of the year and assisted another 49,000 with loan modifications.

This is a start, but much more needs to be done to improve the ability of small businesses to access funding. In order for this country to climb out of its doldrums, jobs need to be created. And the prime creator of jobs is the small business community - 64% of jobs created over the last 15 years. Time will tell if other banks will follow B of A's lead and increase their lending to small businesses.

Craig G. Francis is the owner of Francis Financial and The SBA Loan Store. He has been a top producer of SBA Loans since 1981, and has worked with Dun & Bradstreet and Bank of Commerce. Craig Francis has the expertise to steer clients through the often confusing rules and regulations associated with SBA Loans, having helped over 2,000 businesses acquire over a billion dollars in loans. He can be contacted through SBALoanStore.comor at 888-666-9722.

Comments

[David Kamatoy]

We need create a new set of standards for the way banks look at small businesses and funding them.

The old model will only allow a certain percentage of businesses new funding.

Obviously there are still a number of businesses and people that qualify and education, getting the message out is still the first step.

[Stacy McGregor @ ACE Financial Services]

Yeah, agree to the comment above. Probably, large banks are squeezed out in the market slowly because there have been some other source of funds that are sprouting in the market nowadays such as merchant loans and the likes, which, unfortunately, bears a higher interest rate.