Chase, the U.S. consumer and commercial banking business of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), is planning to increase its lending to small businesses by up to $4bn in 2010, boosting expected new lending to about $10 bn.
This initiative will provide businesses with increased access to working capital, term loans for expansion, commercial mortgages, lines of credit, and business credit cards. While the $4bn in additional credit will be available to qualified businesses with annual sales of less than $20m, the majority of new loans will be targeted to companies with sales of less than $10m.
In addition, Chase also will hire 325 additional small business bankers, most of them working from Chase bank branches to support small businesses with annual sales of less than $10m.
Commenting on the initiative, Charlie Scharf, head of Retail Financial Services at Chase, part of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said: “We will provide more credit – and more one-on-one advice – to small businesses at this crucial time because they are so important to the U.S. economy.
“We will continue to follow disciplined underwriting standards to confirm the businesses can afford the financing over the long term.
“Obviously, our new loan volume will depend on demand from qualified businesses”, he added.
FinSMEs
09/11/2009