Buckeye Business Advantage saves small businesses money on loans

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – High interest rates make small business loans difficult to take on but a new program is offering Ohio small business owners some relief.

Buckeye Business Advantage is a new program from the Ohio Treasurers Office that will allow Ohio businesses with 150 employees or fewer to reduce the interest rate on business loans by 3%. This would apply to a two-year loan of up to $1 million dollars.

“…it’s very simple. You just go to our website. You go to www.ohiotreasurer.gov. You can look on there, the participating financial institution. If yours is not listed there, go to your local financial institution, whoever underwrites your loan, and then you come and talk to us, get the financial institution to sign-up and then we will do all the back-office plumbing behind the scenes to make sure that your interest rate is lowered,” Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague (R) said.

Sprague says the program is part of an effort to bring manufacturing back to Ohio and went on to say that the feed back for the program has already been positive, referencing an interaction he had with a Dayton, Ohio business owner.

“He said ‘we’ve been able to increase our revenue 300% by adding more and more automation and more machines, more CNC machines too, and equipment. And we didn’t fire anybody, in fact we added jobs and we were able to do this.’ But he said ‘the interest rates are killing me I’m paying 10.25%.’ He said ‘if you could get me to pay 7.25% this may be the consequential program in the state of Ohio right now,'” Sprague said.

Eligible businesses must be headquartered in Ohio, have at least 51% of their business and employees reside in Ohio, and use the loan exclusively for business purposes.