About GE :

Let us first discuss about the GE. GE stands for the General Electric. It is basically a company that is based in the United States and having its operations in many countries across the world. It is basically a general electrical goods company that has now diversified into many other fields. One of such fields is the Finance. In the present times, the GE is providing finance to many industries apart from providing the personal finance and the home finance. The financing arm of the GE is known as the GE Capital. Let us discuss more about it.

General Electric Capital Corporation:

It is also known as the GE Capital. It is basically a global diversified financial services company that is providing assistance in the field of commercial finance, consumer finance, equipment management and the insurance. As far as the assets of the company are concerned, these are about $500 million. Thus, it can be said that the GE Capital is a huge asset based company that is providing various types of financial services across many countries of the world. The vast spread of the GE Capital can be gathered from the fact that it is having its successful operations in about 47 countries across the world and it would be true if we call the GE Capital as a global company. As far as the commercial finances are concerned, the GE Capital is providing many types of products to the commercial segment including the small business segment. Let us discuss about the GE Capital small business finance.

GE Small Business Finance:

It is well known to all of us that the small business segment is growing day by day in almost all the nations among the commercial segment. It is now indeed a very important constituent of the economy of the country. Understanding its importance at the right time, the GE Capital started assisting the small business sector in the areas of requirement of finance. As a first step, it started its operations for financing the small business sector in the United States when it joined the long list of such providers.

When it started giving finance to the various small business units, its main focus was on the short term, product based solutions that it was providing to the various small business units. As the time passed, the GE Capital started

giving importance to the building the relationships with its customers, beside providing the small business sector a host of new services which are of course the right type of solutions as required by them. It also started a new program especially for the small business sector, which was named as the GE Small Business Solutions Program, which was tested in Philadelphia. Earlier the different types of assistance that the GE was offering to its clients were in the form of product based financing like the equipment financing, asset based financing, credit cards, fleet solutions etc. After the launch of the new program based at the small business enterprises, the company has changed its strategy towards the small businesses completely.

Now, the main focus of the company is to build stronger customer relationships with the various small business units. The main feature of the new small business program is that now the small business entrepreneurs can easily meet the GE officials so that they can tell about their financing needs and the finance can be made accordingly. Contacting the GE Capital has even become easier for the small business entrepreneurs as it he can contact the various sales representatives of the company as well as the executives of the company at many of its customer centers . The most striking feature of the web site of the company is that any person, who does not know about his requirements of finance, can know his requirements by way of a series of questions that are available at its website.

These questions normally relate to the cash flow, industry etc. It is to be noted here that since the GE Capital is an asset based capital company, it provides the business solutions to the small business enterprises the revenue of whose are from $1million to $20 million. Also, the company should have the business activities for the past three years and the business activity of the small business should relate to any one of the following: Wholesale Distribution, manufacturing, retail business, construction, transportation, health care and the various types of professional services. The minimum finance that can be availed by a small business enterprise is $5000. To make the small business credit more easily, the GE Capital announced a new program in association with the EBAY, the worlds online market place on May 6, 2004. The objective of this program is to help the small business unit avail the credit from GE Capital at affordable prices and in an easy manner.

All the small business units that sell or buy on the EBAY are eligible under the program. They can now easily apply for the GE business credit services unsecured working capital facility. This type of facility can easily be availed up to $50000. Also, the secured lines of credit are also available that is over $50000 and the purchases made at the EBAY are of course used as the collateral. Thus, as per the new program, any small business unit that transacts at EBAY can easily get the secured as well as unsecured credit facilities from the GE Business Credit Services. As per the agreement made between the GE and EBAY, the GE Business Credit Services would waive the application fees, the account opening fees and the annual fee for the first year of the businesses that apply for the credit under the above-mentioned program. The small business unit can also apply for the above program online, as there is a simple online application process. It is also to be noted here that many a small businesses are using the EBAY to start, grow and for the expansion of the business. It is amazing to note that more than 430000 individuals are doing business on EBAY to earn livelihood and thousands of small businesses makes purchases through EBAY.

Thus, GE capital is Providing it all

So, it can be easily said that the GE Capital, the financing arm of GE, is providing many types of services to the various small business enterprises. In the past few years, the GE Capital has of course changed its attention from product-based services to the stronger customer relationships.