Source: SBA FOIA 7(a) data, as of 2026-03-31
Published
Who was the biggest lender?
It depends entirely on which column you rank. Newtek Bank, National Association wrote 1,432 loans to Live Oak Banking Company's 609, and put out $382.8M against $740.0M. Neither one is bigger. They are running different businesses, and the median loan size is what tells you which: $150,000 against $500,000.
By loan count
| Lender | Loans | Median loan | Approved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newtek Bank, National Association | 1,432 | $150,000 | $382.8M |
| The Huntington National Bank | 1,236 | $133,350 | $468.1M |
| Northeast Bank | 1,025 | $157,500 | $193.0M |
| U.S. Bank, National Association | 889 | $49,700 | $237.0M |
| Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company | 826 | $50,000 | $90.8M |
| Live Oak Banking Company | 609 | $500,000 | $740.0M |
| TD Bank, National Association | 541 | $50,000 | $87.2M |
| Readycap Lending, LLC | 461 | $50,000 | $146.4M |
| Celtic Bank Corporation | 449 | $150,000 | $184.8M |
| CenTrust Bank, A Division of SmartBiz Bank National Association | 366 | $150,000 | $79.9M |
By dollars approved
| Lender | Approved | Loans | Median loan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live Oak Banking Company | $740.0M | 609 | $500,000 |
| The Huntington National Bank | $468.1M | 1,236 | $133,350 |
| Newtek Bank, National Association | $382.8M | 1,432 | $150,000 |
| U.S. Bank, National Association | $237.0M | 889 | $49,700 |
| Northeast Bank | $193.0M | 1,025 | $157,500 |
| Celtic Bank Corporation | $184.8M | 449 | $150,000 |
| GBank | $173.3M | 53 | $3,405,700 |
| Byline Bank | $162.8M | 124 | $850,000 |
| Bank of Hope | $151.5M | 130 | $485,600 |
| Readycap Lending, LLC | $146.4M | 461 | $50,000 |
The clearest case is GBank: 53 loans, a median loan of $3,405,700, and $173.3M out the door. A lender can place among the largest in the market by dollars on a loan count that never approaches the volume table.
What they lent against
Sector mix for the quarter, by loan count. Codes follow the NAICS sector groupings, so retail (44-45), manufacturing (31-33) and transportation (48-49) each count as one sector.
| Sector | Loans | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Accommodation and Food Services | 2,307 | 14.3% |
| Construction | 2,160 | 13.4% |
| Retail Trade | 1,770 | 11.0% |
| Other Services | 1,696 | 10.5% |
| Health Care and Social Assistance | 1,657 | 10.3% |
| Professional and Technical Services | 1,530 | 9.5% |
| Administrative and Support | 1,072 | 6.7% |
| Manufacturing | 889 | 5.5% |
Method and limits
- SBA 7(a) approvals only. The 504 program is a separate dataset with a separate lender universe (the CDC, not the bank), so mixing them would double-count neither cleanly nor usefully.
- A loan is counted in the quarter its approval date falls in. SBA reports approvals on a lag, so the most recent months in each quarterly vintage typically revise upward in the next drop.
- Lender names are not normalized across mergers and rebrands, so a bank that changed names mid-quarter can appear under both.
- Loans that carry no lender name in the SBA file cannot be attributed to anyone and are excluded, so the totals here count attributable loans.
Mario Bailey. (2026). SBA Lending Quarterly: January to March 2026. SBA Loan Index. https://sbaloanindex.com/studies/sba-lending-quarterly/
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