Good news for small-business owners: The loan environment is improving.

Small-business lending locally and nationally is on the upswing, members of the banking community say.

“We are definitely in a recovery stage, and the graph is an extreme positive spike,” said Lester Romero, an assistant vice president at Wells Fargo Bank.

During the first three quarters of 2012, Wells Fargo saw a national increase of $11.4 billion in small business primary loans. Romero said he expects the upward trend to continue next year.

Lending to small businesses nationally rose 11 percent from September to October, according to the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index.

Local bankers say the steady increase is helping Nevada's economy recover.

Alfred Soboyejo, senior vice president for small business banking at Bank of America, said 2012 was marked by solid growth in small-business lending in Nevada.

“The Las Vegas market has been resilient, and clearly we’re moving in the right direction,” he said.

Soboyejo said his team approved loans worth $155.1 million between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31, a 23.6 percent increase from the previous year. Soboyejo credits low interest rates and the stabilizing commercial real estate market for the increase in lending.

“Those are really good signs that the economy is getting better,” he said.

Bruce Ford, a senior vice president at City National Bank, agreed.

“If there's a silver lining to the economy that has been down, it's that real estate prices came down,” he said.

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