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KeyBank puts $5 billion on the table for women-owned businesses

Female entrepreneurs represent a highly dynamic segment of the small business market. According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, 10.1 million firms are women majority-owned businesses. As of 2008, these firms represented 40 percent of all privately held companies, employed more than 13 million people and generated $1.9 trillion in sales.

For more than fifty years, KeyBank has been lending to women-owned businesses and helping them grow. In April 2007, Key announced that it would lend $2 billion in capital to qualified female entrepreneurs through its Key4Women program by 2012.

According to KeyBank’s Relationship Manager with Business Banking and Vice President Robert Schweitzer, Key met its goal three years ahead of schedule and has now placed another $3 billion on the table to lend by 2012. The banking institution sees its lending initiative as an important contributing factor to the United States’ economic recovery.

This marks the second time in a decade that Key has exceeded its lending goals to women-owned businesses – the first being its pledge in 2005 to provide $1 billion to female entrepreneurs and surpassing that number in 2007.

Schweitzer said that Key has been working to inform local female entrepreneurs of the program through various organizations such as the Small Business Development Center and the Small Business Association (SBA) in Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan Counties.

Michele Basch, owner of The Wherehouse Restaurant on Liberty St. in Newburgh said after unsuccessfully trying to attain a loan from two other banking institutions that she learned of KeyBank’s Key4Women program after she began to work with the SBA through her City Hall in Newburgh.

Basch said that she and her husband put together a very comprehensive business plan at the request of KeyBank. She said that Key employees made the lending process very fluid and that the bank communicated all the necessary details for her project very thoroughly.

"When you’re dealing with this type of project you can’t expect it to be like having tea and crumpets. It’s a long process, but it should be a long process. They were very careful," expressed Basch.

She said that those representing KeyBank, in particular Robert Schweitzer, spoke on intelligent terms as they brought her through the loan and educational process in a very detailed and functional manner.

"Usually when you deal with an SBA loan it’s very paper-intensive but Michele was very prepared," explained Schweitzer. "So this helped us close Michele’s loan in a fairly decent timeframe."

One of the largest financial services companies in the U.S. and a leader among top small business lenders, KeyBank already provides financial assistance to thousands of women-owned businesses in thirteen states. Key4Women lends capital to women business owners while also supplying financial solutions, educational seminars, and networking opportunities.

The goal of the Key4Women program is to get female entrepreneurs access to the capital and to help them achieve the right type of financing at the right time. Schweitzer noted that the program came in development in 2005 after studies revealed that women-owned businesses are still less likely than their male counterparts with comparable revenue to use or intend to use business credit or equity financing. He said Key has been spreading the idea to female entrepreneurs that "It’s okay to borrow strategically." Membership in Key4Women provides its clients with access to Key.com/women, email newsletters, mariaonmoney.com, local networking events, and educational opportunities such as roundtables, financial forums, speakers, and online information.

Key4Women has formed partnerships on a local and national level that provide its clients with access to organizations that support women-owned business, including the Center for Women’s Business Research, the Women’s Presidents’ Organization, eWomenNetwork, Commercial Real Estate Women Network (CREW) and NAWBO.

Launched in 2008, the Key4Women Resource Centers also provide a place for female entrepreneurs to meet, seek and find resources, and access financial help through the program’s Relationship Managers.