Banks actually helping their Business Customers?

Or is good old fashion common sense come back in fashion?
It seems as if some regional banks have discovered that they have money lying around not earning money. After all, their product is money.

Several weeks ago I began to notice that regional bank ads were popping up offering to carry the lease on trucks, cars, forklifts and all sorts of vehicles and even some machinery. So, we made a few calls to see what was going on.

As it turns out, some bankers were using good common business sense. “We don’t want to loan on real estate or maybe even inventories, but we will lease equipment for existing bank customers that have a good record with us” says one regional banker. A few more calls out of state to regional and community banks, also revealed that many were funding leases for vehicle of all sorts where they were connected to businesses that had business checking account history with the bank for several years.

One banker said “essentially we don’t really care so much about a credit report, except that they are current on all bills. We are more interested in their banking history with us.” Well said, but I imagine they do take a closer look than that. Keep in mind probably not all banks are taking this approach.

Now if you equate this to the distribution business, this is like increasing the number of line items they buy on an order. Or in marketing terms, increasing their ‘spend with the bank’.

So, is this ‘bank regulations’ or just good common business sense? Could this be the light at the end of the tunnel? Look around in your market and tell us what you see.