[quesera]

> the nation’s four largest banks ... only loaned 1.9% of their combined assets to small businesses compared to 10.6% for small and medium size banks.

I'm a supporter of local business for social and heterocultural reasons, but this statistic isn't useful in its current form.

Big businesses will necessarily go to large bank for their financing needs. So small and medium banks are cut out of that market (which I'll bet they'd love a part of!).

Also, 1.9% of a very very large number is not necessarily less than 10.6% of a smaller number.

Furthermore, a better question might be: how many local businesses met their financing needs at each class of bank? Big banks have small branches that do regionally appropriate loans.

But the persuasive angle for me is more about reinvestment. All else being equal, I'd prefer that interest on local loans was reinvested locally.

[bobmarino]

so the "Big Four" have ~4.8 trillion in assets and a small business loan portfolio of ~91 billion, 1.9% of their combined assets. Small and medium sized banks (those with assets under $10 billion) have ~3.9 trillion in assets and a small business loan portfolio of approximately 413 billion or 10.6% of total assets.

The first take away is when you deposit money in a smaller bank chances are a much larger portion of your money will be reinvested back into the community in the form of small business loans.

A second, quite interesting, if more speculative takeaway, is what if the Big Four were broken up? What is their 4.8 trillion in assets were controlled by a much larger number of smaller banks? The answer is that the pool of assets available for small business lending would vastly expand. And yes, small businesses are credit starved, particularly so since the 2008 Financial Crisis. Another great benefit of breaking up the largest banks would be reducing the influence of the financial system on our political system which is particularly prone to regulatory capture.