U.S. Bank trains more than 600 business bankers to win manufacturers' credit lines

Divide the SBA's $6.7 billion by its 8,600-plus approvals and the average manufacturing loan comes to at most about $780,000 ^[1]. Now spread that entire national total across the team run by Dee O'Dell, U.S. Bank's head of business banking sales ^[17]. Each of the more than 600 bankers would hold roughly $11 million ^[2]. Even that figure assumes U.S. Bank books every SBA manufacturing loan in the country.

So the SBA product is the way in. The larger revenue has to come from the plan's other promises, more manufacturing clients and larger working-capital lines ^[2]. It also has to come from the fee services packaged around them: foreign-exchange consulting, plus fraud-prevention and cybersecurity tools ^[5]. The Manufacturing Vendor Services unit has the clearest logic of the lot, because it finances the customers of heavy-equipment makers ^[5]. One maker's account can bring its buyers in as borrowers.

The spending so far goes to staff the bank already employs and to getting noticed. U.S. Bank is relying on an in-house training program and more marketing ^[15], with a curriculum that runs from supply chains to techniques for improving production ^[14]. "We're making sure every one of our bankers who is going to be in front of a manufacturer really understands how to approach them, to talk about their businesses and the challenges they might have," O'Dell said ^[11]. "We've been working on this for over a year," he told American Banker ^[13]. The bank's new specialty verticals are further out ^[3]. For now, the banker sitting with a manufacturer is a business banker with sector training.

Rivalry for SBA manufacturing loans is on the record, or rather the marketing of it is. American Banker reports that the agency's push prompted M&T Bank, Bell Bank, Customers Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp to highlight manufacturing ^[10], which puts at least five lenders on the same sector ^[3]. The administration has offered manufacturers fee waivers, a long-term line of credit and an enhanced loan guarantee ^[9]. SBA data show manufacturing loan volume up about 10% from fiscal 2023 and 2024 ^[8]. On working-capital lines the evidence is thinner, since the bank did not disclose its current manufacturing book or any pricing.

Several outcomes fit these facts. Training could turn existing relationships into bigger lines, in which case the program pays whatever the SBA does next. Five or more banks courting the same borrowers could instead push terms toward the manufacturer, with the business going to whoever prices a line cheapest. A third path runs through Washington. If the incentives lapse, the SBA uptick goes with them, and the banks' interest in factories may follow.

I think the rivalry the sources document is over SBA volume, prompted by policy, and that the working-capital line is U.S. Bank's own bet on a sector it has always served ^[16]. That view is wrong if the other four banks keep courting manufacturers once the SBA's fee waivers and enhanced guarantee are gone.