Mecklenburg County Launches Small Business Loan Program

This week Mecklenburg County, North Carolina launched its Small Business Loan Program. Offering up to $75,000 dollars with fixed 2% interest rates, the county has appropriated $2.75 million to fund the program for its first year. Being managed by the Carolina Small Business Development Fund, the CSBDF will have the authority to sign off on which small businesses will receive loans.

Split into two tiers, one for businesses operating for less than two years or who are without revenue and the other for companies operating for at least two years, both tiers offer a micro loan and a conventional business loan. The former of these being a loan of less than $50,000 and the latter being one of over $50,000. Included with these loans are entrepreneurship training and mentoring.

Among the stipulations and requirements for the loans are that applicants have an annual revenue under $1 million and that they should not have any open tax liens, unpaid judgments, or principal and business bankruptcy in the previous five years. This risk-adverseness may be the definitive difference between such publicly provided funds and their private counterparts.

Accumulatively, the CSBDF has invested $59.7 million into programs such as these so far, with 735 loans having been authorized thus far.

Brendan Garrett was a Reporter at deBanked.