The SBA’s Microloan Program is designed to provide small amounts of capital across a broad spectrum of small businesses mostly owned by low-income individuals. Think of businesses that can be started for a 25-50k sum, and this is where the SBA gets the lending authority, as those borrowers may have less collateral.
H.R. 2056 amends the Small Business Act to increase from $5 million to $6 million the total amount of loans outstanding and committed to any particular intermediary (excluding outstanding grants) from the SBA business loan and investment fund for the remaining years of the intermediary’s participation in the program.
There is some complicated terminology in this aspect, but basically an intermediary is a lending agency (like a bank). So the amount each lending intermediary can have outstanding is increased, which allows for more loans. Yay! More loans means more businesses start up.
SBA-designated microloan intermediary lenders may expend up to 50% (currently, 25%) of the intensive marketing, management, and technical assistance grant funds they receive from the SBA to provide information and technical assistance to small business concerns that are their prospective borrowers.
This provision allows funds to be set aside for essential help and consulting to these borrowers in cases where they need assistance getting started with basics like marketing, management, or technical assistance. Yay again, because this allows for more recipients to get more assistance, and that’s always a good thing.
The SBA shall:
- compare the operations of a representative sample of eligible intermediaries that participate in the microloan program and of eligible intermediaries that do not,
- study the reasons why the latter do not participate,
- recommend how to encourage increased participation by intermediaries in the microloan program, and
- recommend how to decrease the associated costs for intermediary participation.
The Government Accountability Office shall evaluate:
- SBA oversight of the microloan program, including oversight of participating intermediaries; and
- the specific processes the SBA uses to ensure program compliance by participating intermediaries and overall microloan program performance.
These two sections basically set up studies (this is a very typical action in the world of the NDAA). The SBA shall study what’s working and some things that Congress felt might not be working, and the GAO shall study the SBA’s processes. These are good things, as long as the studies get done and published. There are no deadlines or due dates here, something I wish would get added in more often.
This may not seem like much, but this is the engine of people leaving low-income situations by starting up their own businesses. YAY – more and more good!
