Banks focus on small business lending to grow loan volume and core deposits. To compete with marketplace lenders, banks capitalize on their traditional strengths in knowledge of the customer, local loan decisions and greater flexibility in underwriting, structure and pricing to create a compelling value proposition for the commercial borrower. To remain competitive, however, banks must streamline their underwriting of small business loans.
Branch managers, relationship managers and small business lenders are expected to source small business lending opportunities and grow the relationship with the customer. Unfortunately, many of these individuals do not have the skills to identify good lending opportunities, talk intelligently with small business people about their business, or recommend appropriate bank lending products. Compounding the problem, many of these individuals do not know what information to request from the borrower to support the request nor can they identify potential problems with the application and discuss appropriate mitigants. Many do not know how to underwrite a loan request to determine if the prospective borrower is credit worthy.
This small business banking webinar will provide the participant with tools to:
- Source better small business lending opportunities
- Better match bank products and services to meet customer needs
- More efficiently underwrite small business loans
- Identify cross-sell opportunities
- Add value to the customer relationship
Specific topics to be discussed include:
- Prescreening the application
- Determining financing needs in a small business and alternatives to meet those needs
- Employing “30 Second” analysis to determine if the potential lending opportunity is one the bank should pursue
- Analyzing corporate and personal tax returns
- Assessing business and personal cash flow and the borrower’s ability to repay
- Applying a series of decision rules to determine if a loan request meets basic bank underwriting guidelines
- Evaluating the owner/management team
- Applying the concepts in a case study