SmallBusinessNewz

There's more good news today for small business owners who could use a little cash.  Bank of America has announced that it will give $10 million in grants to nonprofit lenders, which could in turn stimulate a total of $100 million in lending.

The idea isn't quite as odd or farfetched as it sounds.  There's no complicated series of "if"s involved, and it doesn't require that lots of other organizations look into their hearts and make matching grants.

Instead, an official statement explained, "[N]onprofit lenders participating in these federal loan programs must set aside loan loss reserves at levels of up to 15 percent of the capital provided by the agencies. . . .  Bank of America's new microloan reserve grants were created specifically to help CDFIs and other nonprofit lenders meet the required reserve levels, and thereby access millions of dollars in new low-cost capital."

Bank of America hopes to help as many as 8,000 small businesses over the next 12 months as a result.

The interest rates on these loans should be quite low, so be sure to follow the situation if a loan starts to sound like the thing for your firm.  And even if it doesn't, this move could help the whole economy.

David Darnell, Bank of America's president of Global Commercial Banking, reasoned, "Even the smallest grant enables a CDFI to leverage as much as ten times that amount to lend to small businesses, which helps initiate a ripple effect impacting job growth, spending and overall economic expansion."