A career commercial banker told me that banks don't typically even give lines of credit to companies under $5-10M because the costs of processing, set up, and administration don't justify the small loans and lines they require.

Until a company can sustain a loan or line of $1-3M, the bank just can't afford to be interested so bankers concentrate on meeting asset based needs (checking, savings, and investments) instead.

Presently, all but a few banks are no longer credit-driven. This means, even with larger customers, the money they make on loans and lines is not important to them. Their real money comes from fee-based services. In fact, some banks levy a fine on the bank service representatives who make loans to their customers in order to create a disincentive.

In other words, service reps go backwards against their incentive compensation programs when they make a loan. In this scenario, the only reason a banker would make a loan is to cultivate a customer who is going to then be more likely to generate fees.