news-record.com

Gov. Bev Perdue played matchmaker Tuesday, trying to persuade the state’s bankers that small businesses are great catches and job creators.

She urged banks to use federal Small Business Administration loans more aggressively, but said that the borrowers must prepare to make good applications for those loans.

Her JobsNOW program is designed to provide state coaching for bankers in using the programs and to give small business owners the skills to pitch their borrowing needs.

She has already appointed a new office of the N.C. Small Business Commissioner and promises to use state workers for the program, she told the bankers gathered for a conference of the North Carolina Bankers Association at the Airport Marriott near Greensboro.

"North Carolina’s strong small business resources will support this effort if you agree to support it," she told the group.

Sixty percent of small businesses that apply for SBA loans are rejected, she said, and it’s not necessarily conservative banks that are the problem. Businesses often don’t fill out forms or understand what bankers are looking for.

Banks bear some responsibility for limited SBA lending, however, because they don’t want to do all the extra paperwork that comes with processing a loan with a federal backup.

"We need you to suck it up, if you will," and deal with those minor complications, she said to the bankers.

Invoking the history of North Carolina banks founded more than 200 years ago that weren’t afraid to take chances for the growth of business, Perdue said, "this is a chance for us ... to return to the kind of lending that made North Carolina so great.

Working with federal and state officials, Perdue promised to hold "banker boot camps" across the state during the next six months to teach community bankers and loan officers better ways to handle small business loans.

She also said state officials will reach out to small businesses to begin coaching them on borrowing,