Small Business to receive Aid from US Government
The world has been experiencing a failing economy now for a couple of years and regardless if you are in manufacturing, service, distribution or anything else that relies on one of these industries to survive, you have been affected by the cost cuts and staff reductions.
As in the NY Times on March 15, 2009 ”It’s a huge step in the right direction,” Giovanni Coratolo, director of Small Business Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Saturday. ”In this economy, having the least amount of risk for banks will incentivize banks to lend to small businesses. A lot of small businesses will benefit from this.” [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/03/15/washington/AP-Obama-Small-Businesses.html?hp]
So what is this going to mean? The SBA guarantees loans up to $20 billion a year in the US economy and yet is projected to approve less than $10 billion in 2009. What does this mean? It means that companies that want to get a SBA loan are not getting approved. The affect of additional funding to the SBA is not really going to do anything if we are currently using less than 50% of the available funding. How will this assist the economy?
The new administration is planning on buying up the slack? By Temporarily eliminating some upfront fees on some of the SBA loans and increasing the guarantee caps to the lenders for these Business Loans. Basically they are looking to off set some of the administrative costs and reduce the risk for the lenders of the SBA loans.
The question now becomes is this enough or just a token to say they are doing something that is left to be seen obviously but lets take a look at this from a business prospective.
Since the majority of this plan is increasing guarantees, is it going to be enough to allow the lenders to reduce their underwriting guidelines to allow more small businesses to access these funds? Lets take a look. We need to make a few broad assumptions here, but lets say that we are currently experiencing a 20% default rate on the SBA Loans being written today. And lets say that the traditional SBA lender will accept a 5% default rate on their Business Loans. Will an increase of 5% toward the defaulted Business Loans have any real impact on the mindset of the risk allowance calculations? Not likely. There are more variables and figures to enter into this calculation, but I am sure you see the point here, it is a start, but it is not enough to motivate SBA Lenders to approve more loans.
On the bright side of things though, this is an initial attempt by Obama to help small business, something that has been a long time coming. As with the major corporations, there has been much negotiation and debate on what to do, so we will have to keep an eye on the progress and analyze the effect to determine future actions.
There are so many alternatives to SBA or bank loans today that are offered by Commercial Finance Brokers as they access to funds for Accounts Receivable Financing, Export Factoring, Purchase Order Finance, Commercial Equipment Loans and Commercial Real Estate Mortgages. Be sure to do you checking around into the various options available to you as there is a loan available for most circumstances if you have the right Finance Broker.
Wade Henderson is a recognized Expert in the Business Finance World with over 13 years Experience in the Commercial Lending Field and a strong reputation for getting the deal done. Visit his Business Finance Website to put his experience to work for you. Visit the Uber Article Directory to get a totally unique version of this article for reprint.