Commercial lending

Small Business Administration lending is an arena where community banks and nonbanks compete favorably with some of the largest U.S. financial institutions. Here are the biggest SBA 7(a) lenders based on the value of approved loans.

Small business clients are important to financial institutions and expected to drive growth. But to achieve that, banks must teach them to be stronger consumers.

But high costs and any downturn in the economy could weigh on lenders and their commercial borrowers in coming months, economists caution.

Banks across the spectrum of size and location serve small businesses — but they all do it differently. At American Banker's Small Biz Banking 2023 conference in Nashville from November 13-15, banks of all sizes will come together to share ideas, learn from experts and hear from bankers in the field who are doing it best. 

Los Angeles-based Lendistry — in less than two years — became the largest Black-run 7(a) lender. Its CEO credits a concerted effort by the Small Business Administration to reach out to minority lenders and businesses, whose participation in the lending program is growing.

The proposal fails to account for the needs of small and medium-size businesses, which depend on banking data connectivity to keep their operations running.

Months prior to its failure, Citizens Bank in Sac City had entered into a consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Iowa Division of Banking due to problems in its portfolio of commercial trucking loans.

The small businesses that drive the U.S. economy and local economies throughout our nation are being "hung out to dry" by regulators' push for increased capital requirements, according to the head of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

This week the Small Business Administration followed through with a controversial policy change by granting access to its flagship 7(a) program to three additional nonbank lenders. These new participants vowed to ramp up their small-business lending efforts.

Consumer appetites for new loans have slowed in the face of record interest rates, but Sunlight Federal Credit Union's partnership with Avana CUSO helps identify commercial real estate opportunities in markets both local and national.