General Motors Corp.'s (GM) recent financial troubles could bring to an early end a $2 billion loan-facility agreement with General Electric Co.'s (GE) commercial lending arm, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported.

The loan agreement, which had been scheduled to end December 2005, allows GM to pay its suppliers early. Under the program, GE pays GM suppliers within days of the receipt of a bill. Then, GM pays GE within the traditional 45-day or 60- day cycle. The supplier typically is paid at a discount.

GE told GM in May 2004 that it would be ending the program, called "trades payable," in December 2005 . But GE said GM's recent setbacks triggered covenants in the contract that allow GE to accelerate the winding down of the facility before December.

A spokesman for GE's commercial-finance group says the two companies are in discussions over the loan and it isn't being withdrawn at this time.

GM said that it would continue such a program through its own financing arm, GMAC Commercial Finance, and that it is ramping up to do so now.

Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter Kathryn Kranhold and Christine Richard of Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this article. Dow Jones Newswires 03-23-05 0023ET Copyright (C) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.