SBA boosts lending to entrepreneurial veterans

V eterans hoping to open their own business will soon get the support they need from the U.S. Small Business Administration thanks to the extension of the Patriot Express Loan Program. The lending program was set to expire at the end of the year, but additional SBA financing will continue the program for another three years, according to the West Lafayette Journal & Courier.

The program allows veterans to borrow for the purpose of startup capital, business expansion, inventory and equipment purchases and other operational costs.

Earlier in the week, the Indianapolis chapter of the SBA held a seminar to announce the extension of the loan program and to interact with hopeful entrepreneurs, the paper detailed.

"Veterans on campus that I'm working with, it gives them some ideas as they're possibly applying for SBA loans. They've had some ideas," Jamie Richards, a veterans affairs coordinator at Ivy Tech Community College in Lafayette, Indiana, told the paper.

The lending guidelines allow eligible veterans to borrow up to $500,000 per loan, 90 percent of which is guaranteed by the SBA. Approximately 7,000 veterans nationwide have borrowed nearly $560 million since the program's creation in 2007.