“How are we going to do it?” Said Jacokes. “For most of these people, they have to set everything up. They have to get their people trained. It’s not up to the lights. People need to know what to do.”
The timing, she said, ran the risk of harming borrowers with understaffing if they did not have enough time to offer the loans, when the SBA gave them an exclusive time slot. The banks are among the smallest in the country, and Congress is devoting $ 15 billion to them to take out loans. Representatives of the borrowers said that they only heard about the launch date on Monday on Friday morning.
The alarm of small credit providers was the last complication in the implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program by the SBA. When the OBP opened in April, it was suffering from incomplete guidelines and technical errors when the agency tried to launch an unprecedented emergency rescue.
The new iteration reflects lessons learned from Congress and administration officials – particularly the focus on businesses hit hard in emergency communities – but lenders were nonetheless uneasy as the SBA and Treasury again tried to bring about a rapid turnaround.
An SBA spokesman declined to comment. The agency said Friday morning that it would give community-oriented lenders exclusive access to the PPP for most of next week. Large banks expected to be able to offer PPP loans only in the week of 18 January.
The timing made small banks feel like they would be subjects for a revamped program that revised the rules for loan conditions and a new technological interface to receive loan applications. Representatives of large and small credit providers said Friday that they are still learning critical details of SBA’s new loan processing system.
“I understand the desire to eliminate it as soon as possible, but I’m afraid we’re going to have a serious problem meeting customer expectations if we have no idea how to apply there. look no further, “said Robert James II, chairman of the National Bankers Association, which represents minority banks. “I’m afraid we’ll end up being the kind of lab rats and not really able to help our clients functionally. ‘
James said his own bank in Savannah, Ga., Has 13 full-time staff, including counters. More than 80 percent of the nearly $ 9 million in PPP loans last year went to black businesses, he said. Many of the bank’s lenders need time to gather documentation and ‘do not have a CPA for shortcuts’, he added.
“It’s not necessarily an advantage to go fast,” James said. “It’s an advantage if we have a portal dedicated to us and the time we need.”
The Community Development Bankers Association, the group that has been asking for more time, represents so-called community development financial institutions that serve low- and moderate-income areas. Jacokes said the largest among them has about 1,000 employees, but some of them are 30-40 people.
“More time can be helpful,” Jacokes said. “You can’t put something out on Friday night and expect people to be ready on Monday morning.”