Approval rates for small-business loan applications ticked up at both small and large banks in May. Banks with at least $10 billion of assets approved almost 26% of small-business loans last month, according to the Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index. That is almost triple the rate in 2011 and up almost two percentage points from the approval rate a year earlier. The smaller institutions, with less than $10 billion of assets, approved 49.4% of applications, which was up from 48.8% a year ago.