Huntington unveils lending program
David Czurak

Huntington Bank announced a major three-year initiative for West Michigan Thursday morning, as the bank decided to make $360 million worth of loans available to the area’s small businesses in order to pump-up the sagging economy and to create new jobs.

Locally, Huntington Bank President Jim Dunlap estimated that as many as 2,500 loans will be made at an average of $150,000 over the next three years. The bank has also hired eight additional business bankers to assist with the new lending plan, which really got started in December.

“We have actually been test-utilizing the criteria we have put in place since December. So we’ve had 45 days or so of experience to make sure of what we were promising here had some legs to it. So, it’s actually underway and were just making it formal today as it relates to the committed amounts,” said Dunlap.

Dunlap said he found the initiative does have legs.

“It does. We’re very satisfied with the first six weeks. We obviously are able to track our historical momentum since we’ve been using some of these new approaches and it is meeting our expectations,” he said.

Dunlap said the program’s impact may exceed the $360 million estimate that the bank announced. “If the demand exceeds that I am prepared to exceed the commitment. That is not a problem,” he said.

Although Dunlap said he wasn’t certain of the local demand for loans, he did say that the bank’s past programs have led to loan requests that have often topped projections. “I hope the exact same thing happens here,” he said. “I hope it does.”

The initiative is also incorporating new lending standards considers loans to business owners who are able to show a recent profitability and reasonable projections.

The local effort is part of a larger Midwest commitment Huntington has made.

The bank plans to make an estimated 27,000 loans over the next three years to small businesses in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan.

Huntington Bank Chairman, President and CEO Steve Steinour said the bank plans to lend $4 billion during that timeframe to business owners in those six states.

“Small businesses are the engine for our economic recovery and future job growth in the Midwest,” he said. “We know that small businesses generate 65 percent of new jobs, and we want to help our area recover by jump starting small business hiring. It is clear that healthy small businesses foster growth and vitality in the communities they serve.”

Huntington is hiring 150 business bankers in the Midwest to assist with the lending process. Dunlap said he hired eight last month.

Huntington Bank ended 2009 as the seventh largest Small Business Administration lender in the country. But the bank was the top SBA lender in Michigan and three other states for the past fiscal year. Huntington is ranked as the 24th largest bank in the nation.