SBA Hot Topic Tuesday: SBA Associate Administrator Thomas Kimsey Addresses Rural Lenders’ Roundtable

December 16, 2025

Bob Coleman
Founder & Publisher

SBA Hot Topic Tuesday: SBA Associate Administrator Thomas Kimsey Addresses Rural Lenders’ Roundtable

The following remarks have been edited and formatted by Bob Coleman from Thomas Kimsey’s presentation at the National Rural Lenders Roundtable on December 3, 2025 in Washington D.C.

Last week my wife and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary, and she said, “I’m really glad you’re not planning our dinner in DC!” DC is really nice, but it’s a lot busier than I had hoped. It’s really good to be out here today at the National Lenders’ Roundtable with the great work you all do. It’s great to see friendly faces, and I haven’t seen many of you for a while.

It was a year ago this week when I was up here for this event. I was going to dinner and had just gotten an Uber when I got a call from the Trump transition team. I didn’t know who was calling, but I answered, and they asked if I would be interested in working with them, and I said, “Sure!”

I want to thank Administrator Loeffler for the opportunity she has given me to run the Office of Capital Access.

We just finished a record year. In fiscal year 2025, the SBA did $45 billion in total lending, the most in the agency’s history. That was about 84,000 loans. Year to date, since restarting operations, we’ve already done over $3 billion across roughly 6,000 loans. On some days, we’re processing nearly $500 million a day. Those are big numbers, and they matter.

One thing I want to emphasize is that the SBA has the best delivery system in federal lending. Period. And we’re about to make it even better.

I came in a little late today because I was watching a technology demo, and I was genuinely impressed. We have an outstanding CIO, and what we’re rolling out is going to fundamentally change the lender experience. You’ll see intuitive landing pages, clear action items, real-time communication, and visibility into your portfolio. If something isn’t complete, the system will stop you instead of sending you back and forth for weeks. That transformation is critical, not just for compliance, but for speed and certainty.

At the end of the day, this is about working capital. Every single day, small businesses come up short on working capital. Things don’t go as planned. That’s where deals fall apart. Our job is to get capital out faster, more efficiently, and with fewer friction points. We do that every day, but we’re going to do it better.

You’ll also see a new SBA website launching soon, with a lender-focused chat function to help answer questions quickly. 7(a) servicing questions will move through FAST, making the process more efficient.

I also want to recognize the team. I’ve put together an incredible group, both here and back at headquarters. My career staff has been phenomenal. They’ve built a strong foundation and kept the trains running. I received a message just this morning from a CDC thanking our centers for continuing to get authorizations out on time despite shutdowns and surges. Our people are working overtime, and they deserve credit.

We went out to our centers with no agenda. We weren’t there to talk about how great we were in DC. We were just there to say, “Hey, we’re here. We want to hear from you. How can we help?” And honestly, it was very humbling.

There are a lot of great folks out there working extremely hard. They were appreciative just to see leadership from DC show up with no agenda. At one point they said, “You know, where have y’all been?” And our response was simple: that’s not what we want to talk about. What do you need?

We put everyone in the room and said, “Just tell us—what’s working, what’s not, what are your issues?” And that’s really what it’s all about. They’re working hard, and our job is to give them better tools so they can be more efficient and make the process work better.

We’ve been managing a surge, and while volume is starting to normalize with the holidays, we’re still pushing hard to clear backlogs. We look at the numbers daily.

July 25th was a standout day. We approved over 10,000 loans totaling $5.5 billion. Manufacturing alone accounted for nearly 4,000 loans and $2.8 billion. Those numbers matter because they reflect real investment in the U.S. economy.

When I arrived, one of my biggest concerns was that we were operating with no fees. We were burning roughly $2 million a quarter. We turned the fees back on quickly, rewrote the SOP within our first 100 days, and launched it on June 1. That gave us guardrails again. Fundamental underwriting matters. You can’t make loans with no equity, no collateral, and no meaningful guarantees. We had drifted too far, and we brought it back.

We also launched the Red Tape Pipeline. Regulation crushes small business, and we don’t talk about that enough. Advocacy is doing excellent work, and we’re committed to eliminating unnecessary regulations. If you’re seeing regulatory bottlenecks, tell us. Call us. Email us. Use the hotline.

We reinstated the franchise directory and cleared a massive backlog of new franchises. That was critical.

Manufacturing is a top priority. We launched a domestic supplier portal connecting over 100,000 U.S. suppliers with companies looking to reshore manufacturing. That effort has been hugely successful.

Strategically, manufacturing matters so much that the House just passed legislation increasing loan limits from $5 million to $10 million. That’s a big deal for both 7(a) and 504. On the 504 side, with a strong first mortgage, we can support very large projects.

We also launched a new working capital program effective October 1. Traditional CAPLines were simply too cumbersome unless you were already doing asset-based lending. We fixed that. Lenders now have flexibility, optional monitoring, and up to a 10-year term-out. This is about solving the working capital problem where deals most often fail.

Our priority industries are manufacturing, food supply chains, and critical minerals. These priorities come straight from the White House down. If you’re seeing deals in these areas, bring them to us.

We’re also strengthening partnerships across the federal government, including USDA, EXIM, HUD, VA, and others. Scaling capital requires coordination, and we’re doing that. Our partnership with USDA Rural Development has been strong, and rural America and community banks remain critical.

Lender engagement is another top priority. We want lenders who stepped away to come back. The SBA team is accessible. We answer calls. We solve problems. That’s the culture we’re building.

We’ve also streamlined COVID EIDL hold code issues. We still monitor risk, but unnecessary bottlenecks are being addressed. If something’s stuck, reach out.

What excites me most is the teamwork. There’s no turf war. Disaster, capital access, and senior leadership work together. If I need help, I get it. That’s rare in government, and it’s real here.

Thank you. I’m happy to take a few questions before I head back to a meeting with the Administrator.