The Wall Street Journal has an article about how the dollar volume of small business loans down, while the number of loans is has increased, according to the SBA.
As of June 2013, the number of business loans under $1,000,000 increased from 21.3 million loans to 23.5 million loans from the previous year, for an increase of 2,200,000 loans. The total amount of loans outstanding to small businesses shrunk, however, to $587.8 billion. That makes for an average of about $25,000 per small business loan. I’m actually shocked that the number is that low, since that is an average. That means for every $100,000 or $200,000 loan, there must be a ton of $10,000 loans.
The article goes on to discuss how many small businesses are using other alternative financing sources instead of banks. These sources are are faster and more flexible than banks, which is crucial for a small business. They traditionally cannot wait months for a loan to be approved or else the opportunity to expand will pass. Alternative financing sources such as factoring, asset-based lending, and equipment leasing are all flexible alternatives to traditional bank loans.
What are you seeing in your community? Are banks making a lot of small, small business loans?
