SBA Loans on Upswing
May 7, 2013
Reports CFO Magazine’s Marielle Segarra.
“Small business lending may be warming. The Small Business Administration has backed more small business loans so far this fiscal year than it did during the same period in 2012. As of May 4, the SBA had approved about 26,000 loans through its 7(a) program, compared to about 25,000 last fiscal year.
“In addition, SBA loan dollar volume this fiscal year has surpassed pre-recession levels. As of April 19, the SBA had approved more than $9.4 billion in 7(a) loans for this fiscal year — an increase from the $7.2 billion it had guaranteed at this point in fiscal year 2008.
“Fiscal year 2009 is when the SBA first saw the real collapse of credit, says Hulit. ‘If you’re looking at the year-to-date [dollar loan volume], we’re more than double what we were in fiscal year 2009. And we’re up 14% in terms of dollars over this time in 2012. It is good news. We’re getting more access to credit to small businesses than before the recession began.’
“‘The economy is coming back and lenders have worked through their problems,’ says Bob Coleman, editor of Coleman Report, a small business lending newsletter. ‘We’re a lot better off today than we were last year, two years ago and especially three years ago.’”