Greenfield Banking Company wins Indiana Statewide CDC Small Business Lender of the Year Award

Greenfield Banking Company is Indiana’s Small-Business Lender of the Year for 2021. The award was made by Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corporation and is for loans made by Greenfield Banking Company to small-business owners using the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 504 loan program. Christy Smith and Laura Nance are the Greenfield Banking Company lenders who provided SBA 504 loans to the bank’s borrowers. Community First Bank of Indiana was runner-up for the award. Twenty-one Indiana banks were in the running for the Indiana Statewide CDC small-business lender of the year award. Indiana Statewide CDC is certified by the SBA to work with local lenders to issue SBA 504 loans. Recipients of the loans are owners of expanding or startup small businesses in Indi-ana. The SBA 504 loans help small-business owners buy real estate, buildings and equipment. SBA 504 loans can give small-business owners long-term, fixed rate financing similar to com-mercial loan terms commonly available to large companies. The Lender of the Year Award is made to the Indiana bank that makes the highest dollar volume of SBA 504 loans with Indiana Statewide CDC as a percentage of the bank’s total depos-its. Several other awards were announced during the Indiana Statewide CDC’s annual meet-ing Wednesday evening in Indianapolis. For the fifth straight year, First Merchants Bank had the most SBA 504 loans approved by Indiana Statewide CDC. Lake City Bank won two awards. Lake City is the bank with the most dollars approved for SBA 504 loans. Brian Burrell of Lake City won an award as the individual banker in the state with most loans approved and highest total dollar amount of loans approved in 2021 by Indiana Statewide CDC. The Lender of the Year Award is based on loans made during the federal fiscal year 2021 ending September 30. Indiana Statewide CDC previously announced that it provided more SBA 504 loans — and more loan dollars — to owners of small businesses in Indiana than any of the state’s five SBA 504 lenders. Indiana Statewide CDC approved 51 loans totaling over $34 mil-lion. The total investment in those projects exceeds $85 million when the share provided by lend-ing partners and the owners’ down payments are included. Those loans created or saved over 450 jobs in Federal Fiscal Year 2021. Indiana Statewide CDC also had the biggest market share of loans in 2021, making 26.3 percent of all SBA 504 loans in the state and providing 29 percent of the total dollars to Indiana’s small-business owners. Background: Indiana Statewide CDC (www.cambridgecapitalmgmt.com) has approved over $760 million of financing for more than 1,600 Indiana companies since 1983, creating or saving more than 30,000 jobs, and is the most prolific CDC in Indiana. These projects represent more than $1.9 billion in expansion financing for Indiana businesses. Jean Wojtowicz, executive director of Indiana Statewide CDC, says, “The SBA 504 loans provide unique protection for borrowers and the bank lenders. One of them is the ability to re-finance existing debt at a low, fixed-interest rate. Many of our borrowers used this feature to help them recover ground lost due to the pandemic. We continued to be grateful to our more than 30 lending partners and to our small-business borrowers for letting us help them build their futures. Their optimism and energy always inspire us.”