SBA announces pledge to increase lending to veteran entrepreneurs

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) today announced the Veteran Pledge Initiative, a commitment by its top lenders to collectively increase their lending activity to veterans by five percent annually over the next five years.

Veterans often face challenges in raising capital or have trouble obtaining a conventional loan, the agency said in a news release.

With this program, the SBA expects to increase lending by $475 million over the next five years and help an additional 2,000 veterans obtain loans to start or expand small businesses.

The program has the support of SBA’s top 20 national-lending partners, and about 100 additional regional and community-lending partners nationwide, the agency said.

“As part of this commitment, local lending partners such as Bank of America, Corning Federal Credit Union, Five Star Bank, KeyBank, M&T Bank, NYBDC [the New York Business Development Corporation], and TD Bank are setting targets to increase lending to veterans and veteran-owned small businesses by five percent a year for the next five years,” SBA Syracuse district director Bernard Paprocki said in the news release.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com