The U.S. Small Business Administration added 3,200 lenders to its ranks through the Paycheck Protection Program, which doled out its $349 billion in funds in 14 days. SBA Great Lakes Regional Administrator Rob Scott and SBA Minnesota District Director Brian McDonald shared the information in a press call conducted on Friday (April 17) afternoon. Prior to the PPP program, there were 1,800 SBA lenders; that number grew to 5,000 by April 16, when the pool of PPP dollars was exhausted.
In Minnesota, 46,383 loans were made, totaling just over $9 billion. Click here for a state-by-state summary of lending.
Overall, 60 percent of the loans made came through banks with less than $10 billion in assets. “There was a huge effort to get the community banks and credit unions engaged,” Scott said.
McDonald noted his office conducted two training sessions per day to bring new lenders on board. He said two training sessions per week were conducted in Spanish, and that other training sessions were conducted in Somali and Hmong. McDonald also said it worked with the Independent Community Bankers of Minnesota to provide training to community banks.
“The Minnesota office went above and beyond, working seven days a week, after hours to make this program a success,” Scott said.
Minnesota, which has a large number of SBA lenders, added nine lenders during the PPP program, McDonald said.
McDonald and Scott said they expect Congress to approve a second round of funding for PPP, but they declined to speculate on a timetable.
In addition to banks and credit unions, they said PPP loans were made by a number of fintechs, including Intuit, PayPal and Kabbage.