HUFF POST: … According to MultiFunding research, in 2010, the top 25 banks controlled about 61 percent of all deposits, but made only 20.3 percent of all SBA 7(a) loans. Smaller banks held about 39 percent of all deposits but made 79.4 percent of all SBA 7(a) loans. [Ami] Kassar points out that Citibank in particular had about $800 billion in deposits in 2010 and loaned $62 million through the SBA loan program. “So they used .0078 percent of their deposits to make SBA loans,” Kassar says. “The average for all banks in the country is .187 percent of deposits going toward small business loans, which is still a paltry number, but with Citibank, woo! It’s one of the lowest on the charts.”
Kassar points out that Citibank’s total small-business loans as of June 30, 2011, were $3.1 billion, compared to $7.5 billion in loans to small businesses in 2008. “So they shaved their small-business loans down by 58 percent in the recession,” Kassar says.
That led Kassar to wonder, “Why should I leave my deposit accounts at a bank that’s not going help the small business down the street that’s struggling?” Unable to come up with a satisfying answer to that question, he’s currently transitioning to Valley Green Bank, a community bank in Philadelphia, that uses about 35 percent of its deposits to make small-business loans… (more)
