Small business owners in the U.S. are struggling to get financing from traditional lenders as the impact of higher rates and bank failures of a year ago linger, holding back business growth for some, Reuters reported. The difficulty in getting more traditional forms of credit shows how sharp interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve, exacerbated by the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last March are reverberating in the economy, say analysts and other industry insiders. Over half a dozen small business owners contacted by Reuters in the last few weeks said they had found it harder to get traditional forms of credit such as loans from big, mid-size and small regional banks. Some were wary of turning to non-traditional lenders like fintech firms or companies that provide financing based on prospective revenues, even though these were readily available. About 77% of small business owners are concerned about their ability to access capital and 28% of loan applicants said they had taken out a loan or line of credit with payment terms they felt were predatory, according to a survey by Goldman Sachs released in January which included nearly 1,500 small borrowers across the country.
