Five Star Bank

Our speaker this week was Tim Kwiatkowski, Marketing Manager for Five Star Bank.  He has 33 years in the banking industry and has held many different banking positions with several banks.  His specialty today is commercial and small business lending.  Five Star Bank has 51 branches in central and western New York.  You don't really hear too much about Five Star in the media because the majority of their advertising is via word of mouth through very happy clients.  Five Star's 621 employees have worked toward some pretty decent growth, and they are the 26th largest SBA lender in the country, which is pretty impressive for a small lender (assets of only $2billion).  Most people don't know that small business loans have different requirements than commercial loans in that a person has to have a minimum 656 credit score, good cash flow, and collateral.