Peter Goodman reports at The New York Times that many small and midsize American businesses are still struggling to secure bank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth, even as the country tentatively rises from its recessionary depths.
Most banks expect their lending standards to remain tighter than the levels of the last decade until at least the middle of 2010, according to a survey of senior loan officers conducted by the Federal Reserve Board. The enduring credit squeeze appears to reflect an aversion to risk among lenders confronting great uncertainty about the economy rather than any lingering effects of the panic that gripped financial markets last fall, after the collapse of the investment banking giant Lehman Brothers.
Bankers worry about the extent of losses on credit card businesses as high unemployment sends cardholders into trouble. They are also reckoning with anticipated failures in commercial real estate. Until the scope of these losses is known, many lenders are inclined to hang on to their dollars rather than risk them on loans to businesses in a weak economy, say economists and financial industry executives.
“The banks are just deathly afraid,” said Sam Thacker, a partner at Business Finance Solutions in Austin, Tex., which helps small businesses line up financing. “I don’t see commercial banks coming back to the market anytime soon.” In the long view, tighter loan standards seem healthy after a terrible crisis attributed in part to years of recklessly lenient lending.
But some economists worry that bankers have overshot the boundaries of a healthy reaction, as even strong companies are finding it difficult to borrow.
“The banks are still very risk averse,” said Robert J. Barbera, chief economist of the research and trading firm I.T.G. “Regional banks are in a particularly tough spot, because they’re choking on commercial and residential real estate.”
Bankers acknowledge that loans are harder to secure than in years past, but they say this attests to the weakness of many borrowers rather than a reluctance to lend.
“Banks want to lend money,” said Raymond P. Davis, chief executive of Umpqua Bank, a regional lender based in Portland, Ore. “The problem is the effect that the recession is still having on us. Some of these businesses are still trying to come out of it. For them to go to a bank, if they are showing weak performance, it is harder to borrow.”
As the financial crisis has largely eased in recent months, big companies have found credit increasingly abundant, with bond issues sharply higher.
But for ordinary consumers, the picture is quite different. What was once of a flood of come-ons for home equity loans and credit cards has been replaced by notices of lowered credit limits.
For many smaller companies, too, borrowing remains tough.
Some 14 percent of small businesses found loans harder to secure in August than in July, according to the most recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. Among companies borrowing regularly, less than one-third reported that all their credit needs were being met.
“It’s quite significant, because small businesses generate significant job growth,” said Andrew Tilton, a senior economist at Goldman Sachs. “And small businesses rely more on bank financing, whereas large businesses have the alternative of raising money in the capital markets.”
Businesses with fewer than 500 employees hold more than half of the nation’s private sector jobs, according to the Small Business Administration.
Read More at: The New York Times
