Huntington recorded more SBA acquisition approvals than any other lender name in our FY2024–FY2026 dataset. Its median approval was $343,550. Live Oak, the second most active name, had a median of $875,000. Both had more than 2,000 approvals, but their typical loan sizes were far apart.
Five names from the top six
These five examples illustrate three distinct patterns: large portfolios with different loan sizes, a lender with activity spread across many industries, and lenders with unusually concentrated portfolios. The comparison uses each lender’s recorded acquisition approvals, with one vote per record.
| Lender | Approvals | Median | Largest industry by count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huntington | 2,324 | $343,550 | Full-service restaurants (202) |
| Live Oak | 2,079 | $875,000 | Home health care services (104) |
| First Internet Bank | 571 | $933,000 | Plumbing, heating and air conditioning (30) |
| Hanmi Bank | 367 | $633,000 | Beer, wine and liquor retailers (147) |
| GBank | 330 | $2,842,500 | Hotels and motels, excluding casino hotels (249) |
Two high-volume names, different starting points
Live Oak’s median was roughly 2.5 times Huntington’s, and the leading categories differed. Huntington recorded 202 approvals for full-service restaurants, while Live Oak’s largest category was home health care services, with 104 approvals. Their most active project states differed too: Ohio for Huntington (374 approvals) and California for Live Oak (264). Those are project locations, rather than bank headquarters or branch counts.
Concentration matters at both ends of the table
First Internet Bank’s leading industry accounted for about 5% of its approvals, while roughly 40% of Hanmi’s approvals were for beer, wine and liquor retailers. At GBank, 249 of 330 approvals were for hotels and motels, about 75%. That concentration helps explain why a lender’s overall median may be a poor stand-in for its typical financing in another industry. It also shows why loan count and industry share answer different questions.
What to check next
For a hotel purchase, compare GBank’s activity with the national hotel profile and check whether the lender has recorded approvals in the relevant state. For a lower-dollar target, look at the middle half of a lender’s loan sizes on its profile. Those ranges describe the approvals in the public file. They cannot establish today’s underwriting terms, the likelihood of approval or whether a lender is still pursuing the same deals.