JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri Treasurer Clint Zweifel (ZWY'-ful) says his office helped provide a record number of low-interest loans to businesses last year.
Under the Missouri Linked Deposit Program, the state deposits money in banks at low interest rates. The banks then use that money to make low-interest loans to farms or businesses with fewer than 100 employees.
The treasurer's office says it approved $410 million of deposits that resulted in low-interest loans to 1,400 small businesses and farms in 2011. That beat the previous record of $356 million of loan-related deposits set in 1992.
Zweifel says the low-interest loans saved an estimated $7.2 million in interest for those who received them last year.