BB&T and SunTrust Top US Small Business Banking Ranking
BB&T, First Citizens Bank & Trust and SunTrust each claimed more than 10 Greenwich excellence awards in US small business banking for 2010.
The past 12 months have been a trying period for relationships between US small businesses and their banks. “Caught between a soft economy and increasingly strict bank credit policies, two-thirds of small businesses participating in a recent Greenwich Associates Market Pulse Study said banks are ‘failing to meet the needs’ of creditworthy businesses,” said Greenwich Associates consultant Peter Garrison.
In this difficult environment, a relative handful of banks distinguished themselves from competitors with service, products and lending policies that earned them superior satisfaction ratings from the 14,000 small businesses participating in the 2010 Greenwich Associates Small Business Banking Study. Banks’ whose scores exceed those of competitors by a statistically significant margin in one of 20 categories are named Greenwich excellence award winners.
Across these national and regional categories, the top winners were BB&T and SunTrust (each with 12 awards), followed by First Citizens Bank & Trust with 11 awards and First Tennessee, TD Bank and Whitney National Bank (each with 10 awards). Synovus Financial won eight Greenwich excellence awards in small business banking and Frost National Bank won seven. National banks including Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, and HSBC dominated the ranks of Greenwich excellence award winners in international service.
During a period of debilitating credit scarcity for small business, it is important to note the five banks named Greenwich small business banking excellence award winners in credit policy: BB&T, First Citizens Bank & Trust, First Tennessee, M&T Bank, and SunTrust.