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Service and agriculture sectors recieve largest proportions of the loans.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announce the results of the First Annual Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) Lending Survey, showing over 90 percent of SBLF participants reported stronger small business lending with SBLF funding.
The report also finds that small businesses in a wide array of industries and in every region of the country have benefitted from the Treasury-administered program and that over 80 percent of small business loans made by SBLF participants were made in amounts of $250,000 or less.
“Across the country, the Obama Administration’s Small Business Lending Fund is helping small business owners gain access to the capital they need to expand their businesses and hire additional workers,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin. “These increases in lending allow entrepreneurs to turn their hard work and good ideas into thriving businesses, moving our economy and country forward.”
The lending survey has also allowed Treasury to begin to estimate the number of small businesses supported by SBLF participants’ increased lending. By dividing the average loan size reported by community banks by the program-wide $8.9 billion lending increase reported in the April 2013 SBLF Use of Funds Report, Treasury is able to estimate that SBLF participants have now increased small business lending by an additional 38,000 loans as of December 31, 2012.
The survey also allows a closer look at SBLF participant lending by industry and geography. Participants report that the service and agriculture sectors have received the largest estimated percentage of additional loans. By region, SBLF participants in the South and Midwest reported the largest estimated increases in the number of small business loans (20,200 and 8,700 loans, respectively), followed by the Northeast (5,500 loans) and the West (3,600 loans).
The SBLF, established as part of the Small Business Jobs Act that President Obama signed into law in 2010, encourages community banks to increase their lending to small businesses through a powerful incentive structure that connects cost of capital to levels of small business lending. Treasury invested more than $4 billion in 332 institutions through the SBLF.
Collectively, these institutions operate in more than 3,000 locations across 48 states. This report includes results from the responses to SBLF’s first annual lending survey. Individual surveys included 14 questions on topics including small business lending policies and practices, use of SBLF funding, and outreach to small businesses. Responses were received from the 327 institutions participating in SBLF as of the survey’s administration, including 276 community banks and 51 CDLFs.
The SBLF is one part of the Obama Administration’s comprehensive agenda to help small businesses access the capital they need to invest and hire. Treasury also administers the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), which allocates $1.5 billion to state programs designed to leverage private financing to spur $15 billion in new lending to small businesses and small manufacturers.
