SBA

Community banks that have used the Paycheck Protection Program to help businesses ride out the coronavirus outbreak are looking to turn that goodwill into deeper loan and deposit relationships down the road.

Queued-up loans. Extra bankers. Government tweaks to promote fairness. None of these precautionary measures has been enough for the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program to avoid the pitfalls of the first.

As banks accept new applications for the paycheck program, they are dogged by complaints that they prioritized wealthy borrowers. But lenders likely fast-tracked clients they knew best under difficult circumstances, observers say.

The Small Business Administration's systems froze up shortly after the latest Paycheck Protection Program was launched Monday morning.

The latest version of the business lending initiative has $60 billion set aside for smaller lenders, including credit unions, but there are concerns the money will be allocated just as quickly this time as it was during the first round.

The billionaire investor and entrepreneur sees problems with small businesses having to apply for loans to get coronavirus relief. He says a more efficient approach would be to let them run negative balances on their bank accounts.

Lenders are being urged to prepare applications for the latest version of the Paycheck Protection Program.

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The industry has always been somewhat reluctant to participate in Small Business Administration lending, but that could change if the agency manages the Paycheck Protection Program well going forward.

The policy move will allow small institutions participating in the Paycheck Protection Program to pledge business loans as collateral to obtain advances.