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There are some pretty massive problems with the government's program to help prop up small businesses and keep workers employed. The @SBAgov folks are making a Herculean effort to fix their technology and update their documents, but it's slow going https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/business/coronavirus-ppp-small-business-aid.html
Check out what @StacyCowley @dmccabe and I found about how the program is working. Even after the SBA provides an authorization number for a loan, it could be days -- at least -- before actual $$ goes out to borrowers from some banks.
Bankers we talked to said it was unreasonable for anyone to think a program this massive could get going -- with money actually reaching business owners -- within a week. No matter how hard it is, though, they're still trying. There's a little bit of progress every day.
Some issues that remain:
-SBA's online portal only lets bankers enter borrower information one loan at a time. Imagine having to do that -- in Bank of America's case, for instance -- hundreds of thousands of times while only a few employees at each bank have access to the portal
-SBA's online portal only lets bankers enter borrower information one loan at a time. Imagine having to do that -- in Bank of America's case, for instance -- hundreds of thousands of times while only a few employees at each bank have access to the portal
-Not every bank is comfortable with the paperwork the SBA is providing to ensure that a loan is guaranteed by the agency. They are worried if they don't do everything right or if the SBA changes something later they'll be on the hook for lots of $$ - a big risk for them.
Other banks intend to hand out as much money as they can until they reach a limit to the volume of loans they can hold on their balance sheets. Normally they would sell these loans, but the market for them hasn't been created yet. Another factor keeping $$ out of borrowers' hands
I'm also still hearing from a ton of would-be borrowers who haven't even had the chance to submit a full application for a PPP loan yet. Some don't have an existing relationship with a lender doing SBA loans. Others are @WellsFargo customers who've been shut out by its asset cap
The thing that makes me really sad is the worry I hear in people's voices that they are not going to get help after all, that the money for the program will be all gone by the time they get to apply for a loan. So one good development today has been the talk of expanding it.
