The effort is part of the company’s plan to hire 1,000 small business bankers nationwide. These small business bankers will provide more personalized attention to small business owners, including offering guidance and counseling; assessments of their deposit, credit and cash management needs; and consulting with them at their places of business.

They will support the needs of small business owners in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens (28 hires); Northern New Jersey (36 hires); Long Island (18 hires); and Southern Connecticut and Westchester (12 hires).

“Small businesses make up the vast majority of all businesses in the tri-state area, and they are truly the heart and soul of the local economy,” said Jeff Barker, market president for Bank of America in the city, in a published statement. “Bank of America will now have a network of local small business bankers who will be as much a part of the business community as the small business owners they work with and serve every day.”

According to the NYS Department of Labor, there are 206,606 companies with fewer than 100 employees, representing 98 percent of the city’s businesses, Barker noted. When companies in Northern New Jersey and Long Island are included, this number grows to 458,839, representing 97 percent of the area’s businesses.

These small business owners are often faced with unique and complex financial demands that require personalized guidance from a small business banker who understands a business owner's unique needs.

Commented Raj Kochhar, small business banker executive for the Northeast region, “With the hiring of our small business bankers, Bank of America is taking on a personalized approach to helping a small business owner with their cash management issues. Through a relationship with a small business banker, small business owners will have someone they can go to who can help them with every aspect of their finances — from deposit and credit needs, to payroll solutions, to connecting them with other bank specialists who can advise them on anything from commercial real estate to their own personal investment portfolio.”

BofA extended $7.8 billion of credit to small businesses in the first half of 2011, increasing new loans to small businesses by 35 percent. In the state, it extended more than $640 million in loans to small businesses in the first half of 2011.

It is also among 13 banks that recently pledged to the White House and the Small Business Administration to increase small business lending by a total of $20 billion over the next three years. Additionally, following a June 2010 announcement, the bank increased its spending with small, medium-sized and diverse businesses through a commitment to purchase $10 billion in products and services from those suppliers over five years.