# First Financial Bank (SBA lending)

The South's cheap SBA desk, 10% down in writing.

The El Dorado, Arkansas bank behind the cheapest average acquisition book in the FOIA loan file. It is a preferred lender writing 7(a) loans to $5 million, fully amortized with no balloons, whose page publishes the 10% minimum equity injection for change-of-ownership deals outright, and whose own book leads Arkansas's and Louisiana's acquisition top-fives.

- Category: SBA & Acquisition Lenders
- Pricing model: Custom Pricing
- Where it fits: Set Up & Fund the Search, Diligence & Close the Deal
- Website: https://www.ffb1.com/business/business-loans/small-business-administration-sba-loans.html

## At a Glance

If the deal sits in its footprint or its Louisiana book, this is the first rate call to make: the cheapest average book in our league table with the injection floor already in writing, so the negotiation starts where other banks end.

## What It Costs

Loan products; no fee to engage. Its page publishes what most desks keep vague: 7(a) to $5M, fixed and variable, fully amortized with no balloon payments, ten-year terms on business acquisition, and an equity injection of at least 10% of total project cost on change-of-ownership transactions. The FOIA loan file, now keyed by charter so the Ohio and Texas namesakes no longer blend in, shows 61 change-of-ownership loans totaling $85.1M in FY2025 at a 7.03% average initial rate, the cheapest in the league table, across 279 such loans in six years.

## Best For

Buyers in its Arkansas and Mississippi footprint, or anywhere in the Louisiana book it leads, who want the file's cheapest average pricing and a published injection floor instead of a negotiation

## Pros and Cons

- Pro: The cheapest average initial rate in the FOIA loan file, at 7.03% once its namesakes' books are split out
- Pro: Publishes the 10% [change-of-ownership](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/change-of-ownership) [equity injection](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/equity-injection) on its own page, which most desks leave to the [term sheet](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/term-sheet)
- Pro: Leads Arkansas's and Louisiana's acquisition top-fives in the FOIA loan file, at a $1.4M FY2025 average that says it works real deals
- Pro: A [preferred lender](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/preferred-lender-program): delegated authority, fully amortized loans, no balloons, in its own words
- Con: An Arkansas and Mississippi branch footprint by its own masthead; a buyer elsewhere is shopping a different desk
- Con: No longer among the twenty most active by loan count once the namesakes split out; the price leadership is real, the volume rank is modest
- Con: Branch-relationship banking rather than a built-for-remote process
- Con: No [searcher](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/searcher)-community footprint to weigh against its own claims

## What Searchers Say

The terms are its own page's, unusually complete for the category; its masthead names Arkansas and Mississippi as its ground. The FOIA loan file is now keyed by charter state, which vindicated this row's original caution: the Ohio and Texas banks of the same name had blended into the earlier figures. Splitting them out moved this desk from 71 to 61 FY2025 loans, from 6.91% to 7.03%, and from four state leads to two, Arkansas and Louisiana, while leaving it the cheapest average rate in the table.

## Compared With

- The cheapest rates in four states, or the desk that knows your industry? (https://searchspheresource.com/resources/compare/first-financial-bank-vs-united-midwest.md)

## Sources

- https://www.ffb1.com/business/business-loans/small-business-administration-sba-loans.html
- https://searchspheresource.com/data/acquisition-lending

Also on this site: https://searchspheresource.com/resources/category/lender.md
Source: https://searchspheresource.com/resources/first-financial-bank
Last checked: 2026-08-07

Site index for machines: https://searchspheresource.com/llms.txt