Bank of America helping S.F. Businesses with e-commerce; Scholarships Provide Free Training, Web Hosting for Micro-Borrowers.

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 24, 2000

One year ago, Bank of America, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Southeast Asian Community Center (SEACC) announced an innovative new $1 million program aimed at making loans to San Francisco's smallest businesses. Today, the three organizations are teaming up in a unique program to take those businesses online.

When the Small Business Administration stages its "big evening of small business" at its 455 Market Street district office Wednesday, May 24 to commemorate National Small Business Week, visitors will get their first glimpse of a unique feature of the San Francisco Microloan Program sponsored by Bank of America, the SBA and SEACC.

The Microloan program provides hard-to-get loans between $1,000 and $25,000 to San Francisco small businesses, particularly businesses owned by women and minorities. The SBA provides low-interest funding to SEACC, which relends to the businesses. Bank of America provides a $300,000 loan loss reserve and covers some of the program's administrative costs, and SEACC provides technical training and assistance through The Entrepreneur Center, which includes a library and research facility, free counseling from the Service Corps of Retired Executives and a computer training center, all located adjacent to the SBA's district office in San Francisco.

As a result, women and minority entrepreneurs have access to capital and other key resources enabling them to open, operate, or expand a business that might not have been possible otherwise.

Now, thanks to a scholarship program from Bank of America, San Francisco Microloan participants will be able to take their businesses online.

The scholarships will fund businesses that participate in a specialized training program at The Entrepreneur Center to learn how to design, create and manage their own web sites. At the conclusion of the six-week course, participating businesses will have their web sites hosted free for six months, through a co-sponsorship between the SBA, Cisco Systems and UUNET.

According to Mark Quinn, director of the SBA's San Francisco District, the web training and hosting program is unique. "When you get a San Francisco Microloan, you also get dot.com behind your business," he says. "No other SBA Microloan program has a similar linkage of technology and financing assistance."

According to Lindy Hahn Sanders, the community development market manager for Bank of America in San Francisco, the bank's $5,000 scholarship fund will cover tuition for Microloan participants for the first two years of the program. "In today's world, no matter what kind of business you're in, you're engaged in e-commerce. Learning how to establish and maintain a web site is as fundamental as knowing how to produce an income statement and balance sheet," she says.

Bank of America provides online banking and investment services to more consumers, small businesses and corporations than any other financial services company in the United States. Earlier this month, the bank announced a strategic alliance with Biztro, the leading provider of online services for emerging businesses, that will enable the bank to offer its 1.7 million small business customers the Biztro Business Operations Platform through the bank's Business Center portal. The platform allows businesses to automate many of their daily tasks and activities via the web, standardizing such administrative processes as insurance and benefits plans, payroll, expense reporting and office supply management. The new feature complements the establishment of Banc of America Marketplace LLC, which provides the bank's small business customers access to preferred suppliers at negotiated contract prices while creating more efficient procurement services. Bank of America's internet and e-commerce capabilities are part of an unparalleled nationwide delivery network that includes banking centers, ATMs and telephone call centers, creating a better, faster, easier banking and investing experience for all the bank's customers.

www.bankofamerica.com