The Coleman Report recently released its list of the top ten U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) lenders—by gross loan volume—for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2010. While the list contained well-known, national banks, the prominence of local, regional, and relatively new lenders was impossible to ignore.
Community banks’ increasing share of small-business lending is significant, given the proposal recently announced by the Obama Administration (for more details on the TARP proposal, please click here), and noteworthy. This especially is true in light of small-business owners’ continued inability garner sufficient financing, with 39 percent reporting an inability to acquire adequate funding in NSBA's Year-End Economic Report.
In order, the top ten SBA lenders for 1Q FY 2010:
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Wells Fargo Bank
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Excel National Bank
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Live Oak Bank
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JP Morgan Chase Bank
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U.S. Bank
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Compass Bank
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First Financial Bank
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Huntington National Bank
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MainStreet Lender
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PNC Bank
Live Oak Bank, which serves veterinarian practices, received its Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approval in May 2008 and already was the second most active SBA lender in the first quarter of 2010.
Excel National Bank commenced operations in 2005, as did MainStreet Lender, a national non-bank lender. First Financial Bank, headquartered in El Dorado, Arkansas, has eight retail banking locations, six mortgage lending locations, and ten agricultural lending offices. The Huntington National Bank serves Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
According to the Independent Community Bankers Association, community banks made 67 percent of outstanding loans to small businesses and provided 62 percent of the initial dollar amount, even though they compose only slightly more than 23 percent of the banking industry (by assets).
Marking the seventh straight month of decline, the largest banks in America cut their collective small-business lending by another $1 billion in November, according to a recent U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) report.
Since April, when the Treasury began requiring them to file month reports detailing their small-business lending, the 22 banks that received the most bailout funding have cut their small-business lending balances by $12.5 billion.
