The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) opened a direct forgiveness portal to help borrowers with Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans $150,000 or less through participating lenders.
“The SBA’s new streamlined application portal will simplify forgiveness for millions of our smallest businesses – including many sole proprietors – who used funds from our Paycheck Protection Program loans to survive the pandemic,” SBA Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman said in a release. “The vast majority of businesses waiting for forgiveness have loans under $150,000. These entrepreneurs are busy running their businesses and are challenged by an overly complicated forgiveness process. We need to deliver forgiveness more efficiently so they can get back to enlivening our Main Streets, sustaining our neighborhoods and fueling our nation’s economy.”
The portal began accepting applications Aug. 4, 2021, and will expedite relief to over 6.5 million of the smallest of small businesses. The SBA stated lenders are required to opt-in to the program through https://directforgiveness.sba.gov. The agency also is providing a PPP customer service team to answer questions and directly assist borrowers with their forgiveness applications. Over 600 banks have opted-in to direct forgiveness, enabling over 2.17 million borrowers to apply through the portal.
“This initiative will allow PPP borrowers to put their concerns of achieving full forgiveness behind them and focus on operating and growing their businesses again,” SBA Office of Capital Access Associate Administrator Patrick Kelley said. “We are pleased to be able to assist financial institutions across the U.S. in processing forgiveness applications for small business owners.”
The Consumer Bankers Association (CBA) President and CEO Richard Hunt said the CBA is proud to have supported banks in assisting small businesses by leading a coalition of more than 150 associations to streamline the forgiveness process for loans less than $150,000. With guidance from the SBA, bankers have completed the forgiveness process for 80 of the PPP loans disbursed in 2020.
“Today’s announcement signals the end of an important chapter in American banking,” Hunt said. “When COVID-19 forced small businesses to shut down, bankers went to work on behalf of their communities to administer one of the most successful emergency relief programs in American history, the Paycheck Protection Program, with the nation’s leading banks disbursing $405 billion – more than half of the total funds or 4.1 million forgivable loans extended – and ultimately helping to protect more than 90 million American jobs.
“As the Paycheck Protection Program concludes, the creation of a new PPP forgiveness platform from the SBA will allow more small businesses to focus their time and resources on successfully reopening, while also providing lenders the choice to retain oversight of their customer relationships,” he continued. “CBA and its member banks are grateful to SBA and members in Congress who helped make this critical lifeline available for so many, and we look forward to working with them to ensure the success of this initiative and help heal the economic damage caused by this pandemic.”