Regional Business Assistance Corporation

Hopewell Valley Community Bank is proud to offer financing through the Regional Business Assistance Corporation in order to help create and support viable small businesses, which is an essential component of community development. The Regional Business Assistance Corporation is a community lending program providing loans and mentoring for startup and small businesses that cannot access financing from traditional lending sources, with the ultimate aim to create jobs and foster community economic development. Sponsored in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, RBAC serves a geographic area that includes Mercer, Hunterdon, Burlington and Warren Counties in New Jersey.

More than half of RBAC’s clients are women and minority business owners; most of whom are start-up entrepreneurs. RBAC offers many types of assistance during the application process, including an analysis of the business plan, its assumptions and projections of sales, expenses, and profits. After a small business owner is funded, an experienced loan officers and full-time business mentor are dedicated to helping them navigate the challenges that small businesses routinely face.

RBAC does not have a typical client. Financing has been provided for conventional business such as hair stylists opening their own salons, truck drivers, restaurant owners, to the high-tech dot-com’s, web site development, and e-commerce, to the niche products or services such as custom-made pool tables, ethnic food purveyors, funeral gowns, etc.

RBAC most often finances equipment and inventory purchases and working capital, which can include advertising and marketing expenses, start-up bookkeeping, downpayments, payroll, and other miscellaneous business expenses.

Eligible only in Mercer County, and focused on redevelopment in Trenton, RBAC can finance real estate acquisition and renovation. Most of RBAC's real estate loans are part of a larger financing package, usually in partnership with a bank and/or the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Three factors are considered before a full analysis is undertaken: 

1. Is the business owner investing his/her own cash and assets into the business?
2. Does the business owner have experience in the business s/he is proposing to start?
3. Does the business owner have unresolved personal credit issues?

Lack of collateral is NOT a reason for RBAC to decline a loan. However, RBAC takes business and personal collateral when it is available. All derogatory situations on a credit report for all business owner(s) and guarantors must be adequately explained and all judgments, charge-offs, and collection accounts must be either satisfied or in a satisfactory workout situation.

RBAC requires a business plan for all start-up ventures. RBAC is not looking for a lengthy or complex document, but we are looking for the basic operating assumptions of your business and how those assumptions are translated into projections of sales, expenses, and profits. An existing business (at least 12 months in operation) must produce projections of sales and expenses and profits going out at least 2 years. 

RBAC offers microloans of up to $35,000, at 10.5% for a maximum of five years. Loans are available to for-profit businesses, and non-profit childcare facilities, in Mercer, Burlington, Hunterdon and Warren counties. Our loan approval process depends on receiving accurate and timely information from you. RBAC's Board of Directors meets monthly to consider all completed loan applications. There is a $100 technical assistance fee payable at the loan closing. In addition, the borrower will be required to pay for any filing fees related to securing collateral for a loan. It is the policy of RBAC that no person shall be discriminated against on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability. To apply for a loan through the Trenton Business Assistance Corporation, download the Micro Loan Application, then call Andre Caldini at (609) 466-2900 to discuss this program with you.

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        Financing
        SBA Loans - Fueling the Growth of Small Businesses
        Trenton Business Assistance Corporation
        U. S. Department of Agriculture Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program