Who Are The Chicago Region’s Most Committed Small Business Lenders

In today’s tough economic environment, there are banks making loans to small businesses. The banks that are actively committed to small business lending deserve all of our recognition and support, as they are focused on our community, helping unemployment, and regional growth.

MultiFunding has compiled our first annual list of The Chicago Region’s Most Committed Small Business Lenders. The 83 lenders included in the ranking are based in Cook, Du Page and Lake Counties. They are all regulated by the FDIC and have a minimum of $100,000,000 of deposits as of June 30, 2011. In order to rank them, each bank's small business loans, as reported in their FDIC call reports, are divided by their deposits. Small business loans are defined as loans with a balance of $1 million or less.

How can we measure a bank’s commitment to small business?  At MultiFunding, we believe that the data that the banks report to the FDIC on a quarterly basis about their outstanding loans of $1,000,000 or less is an excellent barometer of main street lending.  With this statistic, if there is a loan outstanding with a balance of $1,000,000 or less, it counts.  The aggregate number is affected by a number of factors including loans that go bad, loans that are paid now, loans that the bank insists leave, attrition, and new loans. 

The range of commitment to Small Business lending among the banks in the survey is dramatic. Austin Bank of Chicago, the top ranked bank in our ranking, leverages 54.78% of their deposits to make small business loans. In contrast, Harris National Association and Northern Trust Company, two of the lowest ranked banks in the survey, utilize 4.12% and 1.35% of their deposits respectively to make small business loans.

For a complete listing of all the data please click here.