Wells Lent $5.2 Billion to Small Firms in ’96

Wells Fargo & Co. lent $5.2 billion to small businesses in 1996, or about 3% of the total amount extended to small companies and farms nationwide, according to a new federal report. The data on the San Francisco-based bank--the top small-business lender in the nation, according to other federal lending reports--was collected by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. In California, Wells Fargo made 54,257 small-business loans totaling more than $3 billion, according to the FFIEC data. BankAmerica Corp. lent $4.2 billion nationwide, with nearly $2.5 billion of those loans made to small-business owners and farmers in California. In metropolitan Los Angeles, B of A outpaced its rival, lending nearly $775 million, compared with $756 million extended by Wells Fargo. Collectively, the 2,078 financial institutions that supplied data to the FFIEC made 2.4 million small-business loans totaling $147 billion, and 216,000 small-farm loans worth $10 billion in 1996.