Rochester business lending: Local banks report mixed picture amid economic headwinds

The U.S. economy remains in a season of uncertainty, prompted in part by persistent inflation and heightened international trade tensions. We checked in with professionals from three local financial institutions to find out how this uncertainty is impacting business borrowing.

“I think many companies are in a wait-and-see mode right now,” said Tim Jones, executive vice president, Chief Lending Officer at Genesee Regional Bank. “Business owners are trying to understand what impacts will come from the tariffs being imposed. Many are grappling with how to deal with increasing costs and other challenges.”

Jones says that until there is more clarity in terms of tariffs, as well as a better understanding of what the Fed may do with rates, loan demand is not expected to recover significantly. Still, certain sectors are seeing strong borrowing activity locally.

“We are seeing some activity among some of our manufacturing clients,” Jones said. “For example, those that are serving health care and medical markets, as well as food and beverage processing. Also, there remains activity in the residential and multi-family construction market, for sure.”

This is partly due to Rochester’s persistent low housing inventory, which the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors‘ Q1 2025 report described as being at a “critical level.” The report showed that active inventory in the greater Rochester market fell 8.1% to 913 homes available at the end of the first quarter of 2025 as compared to the first quarter of 2024.

“We have to come together as a community to create more middle market housing, or this trend will continue to price many of our neighbors out of the market and stagnate the opportunity for generational wealth via home ownership,” said Don Simonetti, Jr., GRAR president, in the Q1 2025 report.

At Canandaigua National Bank & Trust, Susan DiProjetto, business banking sales manager, says that despite current economic challenges, the bank is seeing continued business lending mostly across the board.

“People haven’t cut down on their services or cut down home improvements,” said DiProjetto, noting strong activity from contracting and home improvement type businesses buying new equipment to keep up with the demand.

Jeffrey Barker, senior vice president, commercial services, Canandaigua National Bank & Trust, says the only sector they’ve seen softness from is commercial trucking.

“We have made a concerted effort from our own underwriting to underwrite these types of businesses a little bit harder than we have in the past,” Barker said. “But that’s really the only industry that we’ve done that.”

Barker points to increased insurance premiums and fuel prices, especially if the company is on fixed contracts with its hauling customers, as part of the reason the industry is dealing with challenges.

In late 2024, the American Transportation Research Institute released its annual Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry report, which declared the trucking industry as being in the throes of a “protracted freight recession,” which began in 2022. The economy was ranked as the biggest industry concern, with insurance cost and availability being the fourth.

Warren Miller, vice president, business banking officer at NBT Bank, identified the technology sector as being particularly strong locally right now.

He believes this is driven in part by Rochester’s strong higher education community, including the University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology and SUNY Brockport and incubator resources, like NextCorps.

NextCorps is a nonprofit, affiliate of the University of Rochester, located in Sibley Square downtown and helps innovative technology companies launch and grow.

“We’re  all working together as a team to advance economic development by funding these incubators and basically bringing the best of the best to work together to solve problems and create inventive ideas that are going to help and be launched in the Rochester area,” said Miller, about community banks, incubators, universities and groups like the Small Business Development Centers (SBDC).

Miller is also seeing strong activity in the agri-business sector, driven by upstate New York’s prominence as the fifth in the country for milk production (per the NYS Department of Agriculture), with nearly all of that output coming from the upstate region, which includes greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes.

“There’s been a huge growth in the agribusiness area,” said Miller, noting Chicago-based dairy company fairlife’s $650 million, 745,000-square-foot milk processing and manufacturing facility being built in Webster. “It has generated contracts with all of the dairy farmers in the area.”

Miller is also seeing strong crossover locally between agriculture and emerging technologies, such as farmers using drones to monitor their crops and herds. He notes NBT Bank (which recently acquired Evans Bank) has a dedicated ag lending team that supports local farmers not only with lending, but other financial services and an understanding of the unique needs of the industry.

Overall, Miller also points to Rochester’s plethora of resources that support businesses in all sectors as helping keep them strong during times of economic uncertainty, such as the SBDC, the Rochester Women’s Business Center (an initiative of the Urban League of Rochester) and chapters of the Chamber of Commerce.

“One of the great things about Rochester is that we have so many free resources for people who want to open businesses, people who have great ideas to develop for business and people already in business,” Miller said.

Caurie Putnam is a Rochester-area freelance writer.