Some of the nation’s biggest lenders say they continue to see the steepest declines in commercial real estate loans of all sizes.
Those drops are coming from mega lenders, defined as those with $10 billion to $50 billion in assets, according to the SBA’s Quarterly Lending Bulletin for the third quarter of 2011, the latest period tracked.
Loans by mega lenders to small businesses increased by 3.6% between the first and second quarters of 2011, but remained relatively flat in the third quarter, the data showed.
Small business loans outstanding of $1 million or less declined by 1.2% from $606.9 billion in June 2011 to $599.7 billion in September 2011.
The SBA said lending to the micro business market has been uneven since 2008, which suggests some lenders may be retracting from credit card markets.
Meanwhile, according to another SBA report, credit unions were found to have picked up the slack in business lending when banks scaled back over the last two decades.
