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At a time when peer-to-peer mortgage lending in the U.S. is actually feeding loans to small banks, the situation appears to have flipped for small-business loans: alternative lenders are approving fewer loans, while big banks are approving more, according to monthly numbers from Biz2Credit. In September, large U.S.

During the "credit crunch" of 2009 - 2011 when the largest financial institutions closed the spigot on small business lending, approval rates sunk to single digit percentages at many big banks. During this dry period, credit unions and alternative lenders filled some of the void and small banks, in particular, were the most willing to lend.

However, the budget deal forged at the end of the year provided confidence that there would not be another hurtful showdown in the near future. As the year progressed, we saw record gains by the stock market and a rebound in the real estate market across the nation. The unemployment rate has been dropping steadily and is hovering around 7 percent, far from the nearly10 percent unemployment rates during 2009 and 2010. Further, interest rates for small business borrowers are still low, and banks are beginning to lend again, although not yet at pre-recession levels. 

A new study found that Latino small business owners and entrepreneurs across the U.S. often struggle to get business loans from banks and often turn to non-bank lenders with higher interest rates to secure financing, according to Biz2Credit.com.

Banks made it easier for businesses to get loans in the first quarter, fueling increased purchases of products and equipment as well as more merger activity, the Federal Reserve said Monday.

If you are applying for a loan to finance your small business, you are probably aware that lending institutions will scrutinize your credit score. But perhaps you've made a couple mistakes in your financial history that caused your credit score to lower, and you ended up with sky-high interest rates whenever you applied for loans. Or worse, you were denied loans altogether.