First Financial Bank
SBA 7(a) lending record · FDIC certificate 28905
Approvals from SBA fiscal year 2008 onward. Source data as of 2026-06-30.
$2.66B approved across 3,854 loans in 704 counties across 48 states. Its largest market is Leake, MS. Approvals peaked in FY2011.
Approvals by year
SBA fiscal years end 30 September. The most recent year is usually partial, since the file is published quarterly. Charge-offs are recorded against the year a loan was approved, so a recent year’s dollars are real but its rate is withheld until the cohort has had time to fail.
Where it lends
| Rank | County | Loans | Approved | Share of county |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leake, MS | 326 | $72.5M | 56.2% |
| 2 | Robertson, TX | 53 | $66.5M | 73.8% |
| 3 | Shelby, TX | 52 | $52.4M | 51.2% |
| 4 | Union, LA | 52 | $50.5M | 86.0% |
| 5 | Leon, TX | 33 | $39.3M | 48.2% |
| 6 | Sussex, DE | 40 | $39.1M | 16.8% |
| 7 | Washington, AR | 43 | $37.5M | 11.6% |
| 8 | Polk, AR | 83 | $34.1M | 79.3% |
| 9 | Benton, AR | 34 | $32.0M | 7.8% |
| 10 | Neshoba, MS | 149 | $32.0M | 39.0% |
| 11 | Palm Beach, FL | 18 | $31.6M | 1.3% |
| 12 | Nacogdoches, TX | 31 | $31.3M | 23.7% |
| 13 | Gordon, GA | 41 | $30.2M | 13.9% |
| 14 | Accomack, VA | 13 | $29.2M | 21.2% |
| 15 | Kent, DE | 15 | $23.5M | 14.4% |
| 16 | De Kalb, AL | 40 | $23.2M | 21.7% |
| 17 | Limestone, TX | 18 | $22.8M | 46.7% |
| 18 | Copiah, MS | 41 | $21.7M | 57.6% |
| 19 | Cleveland, AR | 36 | $20.6M | 64.0% |
| 20 | Duplin, NC | 19 | $19.2M | 40.9% |
| 21 | Mccurtain, OK | 25 | $18.1M | 41.7% |
| 22 | Los Angeles, CA | 13 | $17.4M | 0.1% |
| 23 | Newton, MO | 15 | $17.2M | 16.8% |
| 24 | Pulaski, AR | 25 | $16.3M | 3.8% |
| 25 | Winston, MS | 37 | $16.3M | 53.1% |
Top 25 of 704 counties.
What it lends into
| Rank | Industry | Loans | Approved | Share of book |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agriculture, forestry & fishing | 3,098 | $1.92B | 72.2% |
| 2 | Retail trade | 371 | $333.3M | 12.5% |
| 3 | Retail trade | 112 | $137.8M | 5.2% |
| 4 | Other services | 111 | $124.6M | 4.7% |
| 5 | Professional & technical services | 52 | $41.8M | 1.6% |
| 6 | Transportation & warehousing | 21 | $39.1M | 1.5% |
| 7 | Health care & social assistance | 22 | $21.7M | 0.8% |
| 8 | Manufacturing | 34 | $16.1M | 0.6% |
| 9 | Accommodation & food services | 6 | $7.7M | 0.3% |
| 10 | Wholesale trade | 7 | $6.5M | 0.2% |
| 11 | Transportation & warehousing | 3 | $4.3M | 0.2% |
| 12 | Administrative & waste services | 2 | $3.5M | 0.1% |
| 13 | Real estate & leasing | 7 | $1.2M | 0.0% |
| 14 | Arts, entertainment & recreation | 3 | $1.0M | 0.0% |
| 15 | Finance & insurance | 1 | $190K | 0.0% |
| 16 | Utilities | 1 | $190K | 0.0% |
| 17 | Manufacturing | 1 | $130K | 0.0% |
| 18 | Information | 1 | $31K | 0.0% |
| 19 | Manufacturing | 1 | $21K | 0.0% |
Realised losses
$30.1M charged off against $2.66B approved across every year on record, a realised rate of 1.13%. Counting only the cohorts old enough to judge, FY2008–2021, the rate is 1.54%.
Loss rates cover every approval year on record together. SBA 7(a) losses peak two to four years after approval, so a lender whose lending is mostly recent will show a low rate because its loans have not aged yet, not because they are performing better.
About this data
Built from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 7(a) FOIA data release, a public record covering approvals from fiscal year 2008 onward and refreshed each quarter. SBA fiscal years end 30 September, so the most recent year is partial. Figures are approvals, not outstanding balances, and SBA attributes each loan to the institution that holds it today rather than the one that originated it — an acquisitive lender therefore shows books it did not write.
The in-depth breakdown of First Financial Bank
These pages show what SBA publishes about one lender. Lynx puts it in context and asks what it means:
- Where a loss rate stands. Against the median 7(a) lender and against a cohort of comparable banks, not on its own.
- Whether share is rising or falling, county by county, and which markets were entered or have gone quiet.
- Who is competing for the same counties, ranked by what they write there rather than by their national size.
- How concentrated the book is, measured against lenders of similar reach so the figure means something.
- Which loans arrived by acquisition, so a vintage is not credited to a charter that never wrote it.
- The same rigour on the balance sheet — capital, liquidity, concentration and stress, printed into a board pack.