Community bank serves its government contract clients better with A/R Funding
“ If a client doesn’t qualify for bank financing, or if I need to supplement my risk, I can work with AR Funding to find a solution.”
Founded in 1881, the Bank of Clarke County is a community bank that prides itself on being a trusted partner and preferred provider of financial solutions for the communities they serve.
As the Vice President of Government Contract Lending for the Bank of Clarke County, Michael Marsden focuses on serving the unique financing needs of businesses that provide goods and services to government agencies.
Marsden is committed to ensuring that these businesses can access the funds they need, but there are times when the bank is unable to help them. In some cases, the company is young and doesn’t have the financial history Marsden needs to see in order to make a credit judgement. In other cases, the company may have experienced financial losses or its ratios of debt to tangible net worth don’t meet the bank’s basic criteria. In those cases, Marsden refers them to Associated Receivables (AR) Funding.
“If a client doesn’t qualify for bank financing, or if I need to supplement my risk, I can work with AR Funding to find a solution,” he said. “If a client can handle a small line of credit, but needs access to additional funding, I’ll take on a portion of it and have AR Funding take on the rest. I appreciate that they are flexible and quick to respond to the need. It works out really well.”
For example, Marsden recently met with a female veteran who needed funds to support a government subcontracting job for a large, established engineering firm. Her company was too new to meet the bank’s lending criteria, but Marsden referred her to AR Funding, who was able to help her obtain the funding she needed based on the creditworthiness and financial stability of the company she was contracting her services to.
AR Funding also enables Marsden to benefit from reciprocal referrals. While some clients prefer to factor their invoices over the long term because it gives them flexibility and requires less paperwork, others see invoice factoring as temporary financing that tides them over until they can qualify for traditional business loans or lines of credit. In those cases, AR Funding will refer their clients to the Bank of Clarke when they are ready to meet those traditional banking criteria.
“AR Funding referred a client to me that turned out to be one of the largest PPP loans we have processed here at the Bank of Clarke,” said Marsden. “The relationship truly is win-win.”
