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< Back to index Terri Dial, Wells Fargo vice chairman and head of its business banking group, said that the first $1 billion went out in lots of small pieces. Nearly 75 percent of the loans were $25,000 or less. Other banks also are making major new commitments to small-business owners, who are often described as the country's primary job generators. Last April, Bank of America said it would loan $10.6 billion over three years to small businesses, including those owned by women, in 10 western states. Over the last several years, bankers have begun to recognize that nearly 8 million women-owned businesses in this country are a great, untapped market, said Susan Peterson, president of NAWBO's research foundation in Washington, D.C. In a study funded primarily by Wells Fargo, her organization reported last week that the clout of women business owners has changed significantly. Since 1987, the number of women- owned U.S. firms has mushroomed from 4.5 million to 7.9 million. Their number of employees has nearly tripled from 6.6 million to 18.5 million and their combined revenues have soared from $681billion to nearly $2.3 trillion. Women business owners have strengthened their relationships with lenders, too. Today only 23 percent of women-owned firms rely on credit cards to help finance their business, compared to 52 percent four years ago. And women business owners now are nearly as likely as their male counterparts to have bank credit (46 percent to 49 percent). Wells Fargo charges small-business borrowers from 3 to 6 3/4 percentage points above the prime rate (depending on their credit risk). Large corporations typically pay prime, which is currently 8.25 percent. To qualify for a loan under Wells' $10 billion, 10-year program, women business owners must have good credit histories, have been in business for two years or have related experience, have run a profitable business, have an established bank account for business and have no declared bankruptcy in the past 10 years. While women entrepreneurs may have less experience dealing with banks, surveys show they are no more likely than men to default on their debts. Moreover, women-owned businesses are the top commercial growth category. About 40 percent of all small businesses in California are owned by women and that is expected to hit 50 percent by the year 2000, said Janet Garufis, senior vice president for business lending services at BofA. In a two-week, small-business recruitment blitz last April, BofA sent out thousands of employees, from tellers to CEO David Coulter, to personally call on 143,000 small businesses. Through August, that effort helped add $800 million in new loans. One customer of both Wells Fargo and BofA is San Francisco entrepreneur Lori Foster, who operates a corporate gift business call A La Carte and a nonalcoholic sparkling drink business called Creative Juices. Foster said that she has borrowed about $40,000 from Wells Fargo because several years ago the bank sought her business and assigned her a personal representative. "They came to my front door," she recalled. "It was wonderful. I didn't have to go into the bank." But then the commercial loan officer was reassigned and not replaced. Foster did not withdraw her business, but the next time she needed money, she took out a $40,000 line of credit with BofA, which assigned her a personal rep and helped her set up her first franchise.
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