Word: borrowers
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...smaller banks, which tend to cater to smaller companies, was down at a 13% annual rate, according to the Federal Reserve. Not only are loans harder to come by, but they're also more expensive. That has the potential to slow down economic recovery, since firms that can't borrow often can't expand. Policymakers have responded with a number of programs to boost small-business lending, including an Obama Administration proposal to repurpose $30 billion of bank-bailout money to spur more business lending at community banks...
...last year by the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business trade group, found that companies were overwhelmingly more concerned about slow or declining sales than access to credit. A full 51% of businesses cited sales as their top concern, while only 8% cited the ability to borrow money. An additional 22% cited uncertainty as their biggest worry. In unstable times, even healthy companies are unlikely to want to take on debt. (See the top 10 bankruptcies...
Those that are in the market to borrow are often doing so with ease. In Atlanta, Rob Hale didn't have any problem getting a loan. The president and CEO of United Controls International, which tests circuit breakers and fuses for nuclear power plants, actually had banks competing to lend him money to buy a new building. "I've never seen an environment like this," he says. "Banks are clamoring for my businesses." He now has three offers on the table and is going back to each of the banks, which have started lowering interest rates and removing loan covenants...
...operations and hiring more workers. There's been political pressure on banks to lend, but the problem for some bankers, like Frost Bank CEO Dick Evans, is that many businesses are debt-shy. "I'm aggressively trying to make loans, but right now they don't want to borrow," he says. "At this point," says Harvard Business School strategy expert Michael Porter, "the No. 1 thing that will create jobs is the perception and confidence that the economy will start growing again." (Watch TIME's video "Austin Shows How to Make New Jobs...
...especially to one like the U.S.'s, which counts on dynamism as a competitive advantage. Lending to businesses is down; that much is true. But is that because banks are overly cautious and asset-impaired or because businesses are uncertain about the future - or just aren't creditworthy borrowers? A recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found that companies that couldn't borrow typically had declining sales or depressed real estate values. Simply opening the lending spigot doesn't seem to be the answer...