Last week the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) hosted a Small Business Lenders Forum to discuss what the government and banks can do to facilitate more lending to small businesses. In its capacity as the overseer, the FDIC is extremely interested in seeing the banking community, and lenders in general get behind the push to build up and coming small businesses. This live event was packed with business owners, lenders, and politicians – all stakeholders in this effort to get the US economy back on its feet. The emphasis of the Forum was where do go from here. Everyone knows where we are, the heavy lifting is getting us beyond today’s headlines and into the future.
You can watch the entire event, including 2 panels of speakers at this CSpan link. There was a fair amount of attention paid to this forum, as a few headlines were generated from the remarks made by the participants.
Additionally, the FDIC is taking more and more of a proactive role in dealing with the public. Go to their website which is full of valuable information for all types of visitors. One item in particular that was mentioned a few times was, if you feel you are not being treated fairly by a bank, contact the FDIC for assistance. Even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve who spoke mentioned that the FDIC is willing to work with small businesses who are having trouble with an institution. There is even a link to help at the site. It’s important to remember that the government are people, who value their work and in some cases are listening and reacting to problems.