The SBA funded $793 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans through 5,000 lenders. The loans can be forgiven, and $664 billion worth have been so far.
Who are the top 25 lenders (in terms of dollars)?
And what percentage of their loans have been forgiven?
First things first.
How do PPP loans get forgiven?
Loans are forgivable (they don’t need to be repaid) if a borrower meets certain requirements, such as using at least 60% of the loan for payroll costs. Given the average PPP loan amount is $59,000, forgiveness can be financially significant to a borrower.
Generally, lenders review a borrower’s application for loan forgiveness and submit their decision to the Small Business Administration (SBA), which then has 90 days to do its own review and send the appropriate forgiveness amount to the lender. The SBA Office of Inspector General recently reported that the agency did not meet the 90-day requirement for 107,000 loans totaling $66.4 billion.
So, who are the top 25 PPP lenders?
Well-known banks, like Bank of America and PNC Bank, make up 21 of them. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that banks made more than 93 percent of all loans in the initial round of the PPP.
The remaining four are considered non-bank lenders − like financial technology (“FinTech”) companies − that generally do not accept deposits but rather focus on lending through automated online platforms. The GAO found that PPP loans made by non-banks increased significantly in later phases of the program as part of the SBA’s effort to increase the availability of loans in underserved communities. Permitted by the CARES Act, the SBA brought in 800 new lenders to help increase lending to underserved communities.
What else is interesting about the top 25 lenders?
Seven of the 25 top lenders participate in the new forgiveness portal. In August 2021, the SBA launched an online portal to simplify the loan forgiveness application. Borrowers with PPP loans of $150,000 or less could bypass their lender and use the portal to apply for forgiveness directly with the SBA. However, borrowers could only use the portal if their lender agreed to use it – and most lenders didn’t.
Is loan forgiveness consistent between the top lenders?
There's some variation in percentage of loan amounts forgiven by lender. For example, 89% of the PPP loans made by Comerica Bank have been forgiven and 57% of the loans made by Prestamos CFDI, LLC have been forgiven.
Click on the graphic below to see more details on the top lenders and to see which lenders participate in the loan forgiveness portal as well as the lender type (bank vs non-bank).
And don't forget to also check out our dashboard. It lets you see all the details on PPP – like who got the loans, what they were used for, and how many jobs they reported retained. It’s the largest pandemic relief program. You deserve to know everything about it.
Note: The forgiveness rates for lenders are percentages based on the dollar amount of forgiven loans divided by the dollar amount of loans approved.
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