Bank Loans Getting Harder To Come By

One of the most common phrases we hear from our clients at Synergy Merchant Services is “my bank turned me down”. Ironically, many business owners throughout Canada who have long developed relationships with financial institutions find that they are not being approved for small business loans.

Many owners go so far as exclaiming that they feel “betrayed” as they thought that having banked with these financial institutions for so long would have been a reason that they could be trusted. In many cases, these same banks had been advertising their small business loan programs to these owners only to have the eventual application go unapproved.

“Anyone who has looked into getting a bank loan these days knows they are hard to come by,” says Kayce T. Ataiyero, in the July 10, 2009 issue of The Chicago Tribune, “The poor economy and the resulting rise in loan defaults have scared banks into setting the credit bar so high that even those with decent FICO scores are having trouble getting approval,”

Whatever the reason, it is becoming more and more apparent that if a small to medium-sized business owner has intentions of expanding his or her business, the traditional bank loan may no longer be looked upon as the first source of assistance.

Owner of the first Chili'sGrill & Bar in Ontario, Heath Everett knows this all too well. In Andrea Hopkins' June 29, 2009 article on Portfolio.com, she recounts Everett's experience with trying to secure a business loan from one of Canada's banks.

“I approached all of the major Canadian financial institutions, the big banks, and with the exception of RBC none would even entertain a sit-down conversation with me,” Everett said. “(They said) restaurants are too risky.”

If there is one thing that Synergy Merchants Services can guarantee, it is that a free quote is the least we can provide to Canadian business owners who have been processing credit and debit transactions in their establishments. It is important that business owners looking to grow their businesses are, at the very least, afforded the opportunity to know how much they may be approved for.

While there is, of course, a few points of criteria that must be met to determine eligibility for the program, Synergy maintains that the process of attaining extra capital through a merchant cash advance is proving to be a lot less painstaking than going to a bank for a loan. Evidently, such loans are getting harder to come by.