The short answer
Ask for a commercial lender, also called a relationship manager, who covers your kind of loan and your market. Find the name on the bank's own commercial lending page or by calling the main number and asking for commercial lending. Send three sentences: the loan in one line, why this bank, and what you are attaching. Follow up once by phone.
The steps in short
- Name the role you need. A commercial lender for most loans. An SBA lender, a construction lender or an agricultural lender if the loan is one of those.
- Go to the bank's own website. Look for a commercial or business lending page with a team list, or a contact form for commercial lending.
- Call the main number. Ask for commercial lending and say what kind of loan and which county. Ask for the lender's direct line and email.
- Send three sentences. The loan in one line, why this bank, and what is attached.
- Attach one page. A deal summary. Hold the full package until the lender asks.
- Follow up once. Call a few business days later. If there is still no answer, ask the main number who else covers that market.
Who does what
Banks use different titles for the same jobs. Know the roles and you can ask for the right one.
Roles in a commercial loan, and what each decides
| Role | Common titles | What the person does |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial lender | Relationship manager, commercial loan officer, business banker | Takes the request, structures the loan, writes or sponsors the credit memo, and owns the relationship after closing. This is your first contact. See originator |
| Credit officer or analyst | Credit analyst, underwriter, credit officer | Analyzes the financials and tests the lender’s proposal. Usually does not talk to borrowers at first |
| Credit authority | Chief credit officer, loan committee, directors’ loan committee | Decides loans above the lender’s own authority. See credit committee |
| Market or team leader | Market president, commercial team leader | Manages the lenders in a region and decides which requests the team pursues |
| Specialist | SBA lender, construction lender, agricultural lender, treasury officer | Handles one kind of loan across the bank |
| President or chief executive | President | At a small bank, often the senior lender as well |
Credit unions are organized the same way on a smaller scale, and NCUA’s rule requires it to be written down: a credit union’s commercial loan policy must cover the “qualifications and experience requirements for personnel involved in underwriting, processing, approving, administering, and collecting commercial loans” and set “levels of loan approval authority.” Some credit unions use a service organization that underwrites business loans for several owners, and the lender you need may work there.
Which role you need
- Most commercial real estate and business loans: a commercial lender who covers your county or city.
- SBA loans: the bank’s SBA department, if it has one. Many banks route every SBA request to a small central team.
- Construction and development: a commercial real estate or construction lender. Some banks have a separate real estate group.
- Farm loans: an agricultural lender.
- Small loans: at some banks, loans under a set size go to a business banker in the branch system or to a central small business unit. Ask where your size goes.
Where to look
1. The lender’s own website. This is the best source because the bank chose to publish it. Look for “commercial banking,” “business lending” or “meet our team.” Many community banks list their commercial lenders with a market, a direct line and an email address. Use those business details and no others.
2. The lender page on this site. This site has pages for 10,906 FDIC, NCUA, HMDA and SBA files, lenders. Every lender page links the lender’s website and shows a main phone number when the public record has one. It shows where the lender has branches. By default it does not name people.
3. The regulator’s record, for facts. The FDIC’s BankFind data lists every bank’s legal name, certificate number, headquarters, website and branch locations. NCUA’s credit union lookup does the same for credit unions. Use them to make sure you have the right institution. Many banks share a name, and the certificate number or charter number settles it.
4. SBA’s tools, for SBA lenders. Lender Match is SBA’s own tool that passes a borrower’s request to participating lenders. SBA’s local assistance finder lists district offices, and SBA publishes a list of certified development companies for 504 projects. A CDC can tell you which local banks it has worked with on 504 projects. SBA does not require you to use an agent or broker.
5. The main number. Call it and say: “I am looking for a commercial lender who handles” your kind of loan “in” your county. Receptionists at community banks route this call every day.
6. Trade groups and events. State bankers associations, state credit union leagues and local commercial real estate and business groups hold events where lenders come to meet borrowers and brokers. This guide does not list them, and no directory was checked for it. Search for the association in your state.
What not to use: bought contact lists, scraped personal emails, home addresses or personal mobile numbers. A banker contacted at a business address about a business loan is doing their job. The same banker contacted at home is not.
Looking for a lender now? Find lenders for this in your state.
The first message
Three sentences, by email, to a business address.
Worked example (hypothetical). Subject: Owner-occupied purchase, $2.1 million, Stark County
“I am working with a 20-year-old machine shop that is buying the building it now rents in Stark County: a $2,100,000 loan on a $2,800,000 price, and the business will occupy all of it. Your bank’s public filings show it holds owner-occupied loans and has three branches in the county, which is why I am writing to you first. A one-page summary is attached, and I can send three years of returns and the purchase contract today if this is a fit.”
Sentence one is the loan in one line. Sentence two says why this bank, from facts the banker can recognize. Sentence three says what is attached and what comes next. The loan to value is 75 percent ($2,100,000 divided by $2,800,000), and the summary should say so.
Why it works: the banker can decide in thirty seconds whether to reply, and you have shown that you chose the bank on purpose.
What to attach, and what to hold
Attach: one page. The deal summary builder prints one. It should carry the one line, sources and uses, the property or business in a paragraph, the three ratios, and the sponsor in a paragraph.
Hold until asked: tax returns, personal financial statements, anything with a Social Security number or account number. Send those only after the lender replies, and by the secure method the bank gives you. See what a lender-ready package looks like.
Follow-up
- Once, by phone, after a few business days. Lenders travel and work their own calendars. One call is expected.
- If nothing, go sideways. Call the main number and ask who else covers that market or that kind of loan.
- If the answer is no, ask one question. “Is it the size, the property type, the market or timing?” Then ask whether they know a bank that does make that loan. Bankers know their competitors.
- Keep notes. Bank, person’s role, date, answer, reason. After ten calls the notes are a map of the market.
What not to do
- Do not send the same message to every lender at one bank. They sit near each other.
- Do not send a full package unasked.
- Do not describe the loan as better than it is. The credit officer will find the tenant that left.
- Do not name other banks’ terms unless you have them in writing.
- Do not pressure. A banker who feels rushed says no, because no is the safe answer.
- If you are a broker, say so in the first line, and say who pays you. See how a broker works with community banks.
Want a person to check the public record for your deal? Request financing from The Lender Report’s operator. A person replies by email, usually naming lenders that have made loans like yours. It is free, it covers business and investment property loans only, and nothing is sent to a lender.
What the public record shows, and what it does not
It shows: the institution, its branches, its website, a main phone number in many cases, and whether it holds or makes loans like yours.
It does not show: which lender covers your market, who has authority for your loan size, or whether the person still works there. Staff lists on bank websites go out of date. Confirm by phone.
Questions to put to the lender on the first call
- Do you cover this county and this kind of loan, or should I speak with someone else on your team?
- Is this size within what you handle?
- Who decides a loan like this, and how often do they meet?
- How do you want documents sent?
Terms used here
- Originator: An originator is the person, or the lender, that brings in a loan request and carries it through to closing.
- Credit committee: A credit committee is the group inside a lender that decides on loans above the amount a single loan officer is allowed to decide alone.
- Community bank: A community bank is a smaller bank that takes deposits and lends mostly in the area around its offices, and decides on loans close to home.
- Commercial mortgage broker: A commercial mortgage broker is a person or firm that takes a borrower's loan request to lenders and is paid a fee, without lending its own money.
- Credit union service organization (CUSO): A company that credit unions own or lend to, set up mainly to provide services to credit unions or their members. Some underwrite and service business loans.
- Certified development company (CDC): A lender certified by SBA to package, close and service 504 loans and to issue the debenture that funds up to 40 percent of a project.
- SBA Lender Match: An SBA online tool where a business answers a few questions and SBA sends a summary of interested lenders within two business days. It is not a loan request and promises no loan.
- FDIC certificate number: The unique number the FDIC assigns to each bank and savings institution, used to identify it in FDIC records.
- NCUA charter number: The number NCUA uses to identify a credit union in its records and call report files. It is the surest way to tell apart credit unions with similar names.
Sources
Every rule and outside figure above comes from one of these, opened on . Dates are the source's own. Figures from this site's data carry their own source and date beside them.
Next step: check the record
- Search lendersEach lender page links the lender's own website and shows a main phone number when the public record has one.
- SBA lenders by loans madeLenders with an SBA department, counted from SBA's own file.
- Build a one-page deal summaryThe attachment for a first message.
Keep reading
- Deal summary builder: Turn the facts of a deal into a clean one-page summary you can copy or print. Nothing is saved or sent.
- How to place a commercial loan with a bank: A bank loan moves through the same stages every time. Knowing them tells you what the bank needs at each point, what its answer means, and where time is lost.
- How to pick banks for a deal with public data: Public filings cannot tell you which bank will say yes. They can tell you which banks are large enough, already hold loans like yours and lend where the property is. That is enough to turn four thousand banks into six phone calls.
- What a lender-ready loan package looks like: A lender decides in minutes whether to keep reading. A package that answers the first five questions on one page, and backs each answer with a document, gets read.
- How a loan broker works with community banks: A community bank will take a good loan from a broker it trusts. Trust comes from three things: the bank knows who is paying you, your packages are accurate, and you bring loans that fit what the bank does.
- How to place a business loan with a credit union: Credit unions make business loans, and some make a lot of them. Three things are different from a bank: the borrower must be a member, most credit unions work under a cap on business loans, and the limit to one borrower is set against net worth.
- A banker's guide to working with loan brokers: Broker-sourced loans are ordinary business for many banks. Handling them well is mostly a matter of knowing who the broker is, who pays them, and keeping the credit work your own.
Questions people ask
Does this site list loan officers?
A lender's page here is built from public records and by default names no individuals. It links the lender's own website and shows a main phone number when the record has one. People appear only where a lender has added its own staff.
Should I start with the bank president?
At a very small bank the president often is the commercial lender, and calling the main number will tell you so. At a larger bank, start with a commercial lender. Going over the lender's head rarely helps.
Is it acceptable to contact a banker on a social network?
A short professional note is fine if the banker lists commercial lending as their job. Do not send financial documents that way, and do not use personal phone numbers or home addresses from any source.
Cite this
Source: The Lender Report, How to find the right person at a bank for a loan, https://lender.report/guides/find-the-right-person-at-a-bank/, data as of November 11, 2026.
General information, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do; ask it for the policy in writing.
Source and date appear beside each figure. Banks report balances, not loans made. Loans made come only from HMDA and SBA files. We do not audit filings and can make errors joining them. Report a problem