The Wall Street Journal recently reported on what it calls a possible "thaw" for bank lending in the coming future.
According to the source's John Carney, bank and business lending gains have actually increased over the first few months of 2014, and could point the way to more growth, even though the overall economic situation might still be relatively challenging.
Carney writes that this information should be taken with some cautious optimism and that one has to look specifically at the performance of loans on a month to month basis to gain a real understanding of what this sector is doing.
"While loan growth seen in the first quarter isn't yet strong enough to suggest banks are anywhere near out of the woods, it does provide some reason to hope the lending environment is improving," he writes, adding that this lending increase "could bode well for banks' coming first-quarter results."
Some communities might have their own specific stories to tell when it comes to these kinds of trends. The Northern Colorado Business Report recently noted that business lending in the state had made "double-digit gains" at the end of last year, especially in the northern areas of that state.
The gains in opportunities for lenders might be useless without the proper measures to accommodate for higher levels of business, including automated decisioning that is scaled to the pace of the transactions a business is seeing.
A good decision engine can help your outfit function in different circumstances, whether the amount of deals being made is high or low. Putting the right tools to work can help lending outfits focus on making the best business decisions for further growth.
