Harvard Business Review editor David Champion has a blog post on HBR called “Meet the New Bank…”

In the post, he relates a story from a entrepreneur friend of his, who recently went to open a checking account at a big bank in NYC, and left with an unsolicited offer to borrow $200k for his business. Although his business was unprofitable, and he was actually considering winding it down, the bank was prepared to write him a giant loan without consideration to the health of the business.

It’s just an anecdote, but one worth considering. It gets beyond the lending policies of the banks, and to the people who are making the real lending decisions and presentations to their customers. Policies are easy to change; cultures aren’t.