Delinquent loans at small and medium-sized businesses nationwide showed signs of having peaked in April, according to PayNet Inc, a firm that provides risk-management tools to the commercial lending industry.

PayNet on Tuesday said that accounts in moderate delinquency, or behind by 30 days or more, slipped to 4.15 percent in April from 4.37 percent in March. It was the lowest level since December and marked the biggest one-month improvement in the measure since April 2004.

Still, a year ago loans in moderate delinquency were at 3.51 percent. The monthly average since 2000 has been 4.08 percent.

"There are rays of hope and sunshine in the moderate delinquencies," Bill Phelan, PayNet’s president and founder, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Lenders showing an improvement in delinquencies outnumbered those showing growing delinquencies by almost two to one in April, Phelan said.

Still, accounts that were 90 days or more behind in payment, or in severe delinquency, rose to 1.46 percent in April from 1.41 percent in March and were up from 1.05 percent a year earlier.

Those that were 180 days behind, or considered to be in default, hit 0.74 percent against 0.69 percent in March and 0.42 in April 2008.

"There are still a lot of write-offs and non-performing loans that have to work their way through the system," Phelan said. Demand for capital spending loans also remains depressed, he added.

PayNet, based in Skokie, Illinois, collects and analyzes real-time loan information, such as originations and delinquencies, from more than 200 leading U.S. capital equipment lenders.

The company’s proprietary database encompasses more than 14 million current and historic contracts, worth some $645 billion.

More than half the money invested in plants, equipment and software in the United States in any given year is financed with loans, leases and lines of credit.