Fifty community banks across the country received $767 million in the latest round of funding from the Small Business Lending Fund, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.
The top recipients in this round were First Busey Corp. of Champaign, Ill., which received $72.7 million; Great Southern Bancorp Inc. of Springfield, Mo., which received $57.9 million; and The ANB Corp. of Terrell, Texas, which received $37 million.
The fund was established to encourage banks with less than $10 billion in assets to increase their lending to small businesses. As of Wednesday's announcement, 130 community banks have received more than $1.8 billion in investments from the fund. Under the program, participants can reduce the size of the dividend they pay the government as they increase their small-business lending.
