Springfield SBA makes Missouri’s first Rural Lender Advantage loan

SBA’s Rural Lender Advantage was launched in May in SBA’s Region VII, which covers Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. The initiative is part of SBA’s 7(a) loan program and is intended to streamline and simplify the loan application process to encourage more rural lenders to participate.

Walter Cowart, acting manager of SBA’s Springfield Branch office, said the first RLA loan, for $176,000, went to Add Life Chiropractic & Wellness in Osage Beach.

Jack Funderburk, commercial loan officer with Central Bank of Lake of the Ozarks, was the participating lender, according to an SBA news release.

“The RLA loan program dramatically reduced the amount of time it took to process the request for my customer,” Funderburk said in the release.

Specifically, RLA is designed to encourage small or rural lenders that make 20 or fewer SBA-guaranteed loans annually to offer such loans to borrowers. Features of the RLA initiative include a shorter, simplified application for loans of less than $350,000 and an expedited loan processing time of three to five days.

The SBA expects to offer the RLA initiative nationwide by the end of the current fiscal year.

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