In the past few years, the national economic recovery has reached a significant number of small businesses in different ways, but one issue that many have still encountered in that time is that they simply do not have much access to the kind of lending that’s often necessary to help them expand. However, that might not be an issue much longer, because many banks that may have been reticent to extend such financing in the past may now be changing their standards.
The improving economy seems to have put many financial institutions in a better mood when it comes to extending credit to small businesses, which in turn could wind up being a boon to many companies across the country which have been looking to expand, according to a report from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. In fact, one bank operating in that part of the Sunshine State is actually going to make it a priority to extend financing to these businesses in particular in the coming months.
“I see really great opportunities,” Jose “Joe” Atkinson, the new head of the region for Wells Fargo, told the newspaper. “That’s our goal: to give more loans.”
The bank already extended some $13.5 million in loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration last year, and Atkinson wants to boost that number, the report said. The bank certainly has the resources to do so, too, because Atkinson alone is overseeing nearly 150 offices and 2,400 employees across Boca Raton, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe Counties alone.
What could this mean for local companies?
When it comes to expansion and future success for small businesses, many studies have shown that access to credit is critical. As such, owners might want to be a little more aggressive in the coming months in seeking out such financing, because surveys indicate that many entrepreneurs are simply not even bothering to take the time to apply, so discouraged have they been by the difficulties they might have had in the past few years when it came to the approval process.
Those owners who want to best position to obtain such a loan might want to do more to shore up their finances in other ways as well, such as by finding more affordable small business insurance coverage. By cutting costs for commercial property insurance, for instance, they might be able to free up thousands of dollars annually, which in turn could put them in a better position overall.
