Chase, the US consumer and commercial banking business of JP Morgan Chase & Co, plans to increase its lending to small businesses by up to $4 billion in 2010, boosting expected new lending to about $10 billion to this vital segment of the US economy.
This will provide businesses with increased access to working capital, term loans for expansion, commercial mortgages, lines of credit, and business credit cards. While the $4 billion 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.
Chase also will hire 325 additional small business bankers, most of them working from Chase bank branches to help reach small businesses with annual sales of less than $10m. That adds 17% more bankers to the 1,900 bankers who currently support the less than $10m segment.
Charlie Scharf, head of retail financial services at Chase, 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 US economy. We urge small businesses owners to use the additional capital to expand and create jobs, and spur economic growth.”
