Commercial lending

By an overwhelming majority, the House approved a two-month extension of the Paycheck Protection Program, which still has almost $93 billion left to distribute.

DLP Bancshares, an affiliate of DLP Real Estate Capital, plans to use the acquisition to create a national platform for commercial real estate and warehouse loans.

Government relief programs and lenders’ forbearance have kept U.S. small businesses from defaulting on their debt en masse as revenue slumped during the pandemic crisis, according to a new analysis.

There are ways to remove bad actors from the industry — such as reinstating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s payday lending rule and banning certain fees and collection practices — without hindering consumers’ access to emergency credit.

Acquisition-hungry Stearns Bank has been fielding so many calls from would-be sellers that it has brought in a merger specialist to sort through them.

M&T Bank, Citizens Financial and Huntington Bancshares are playing it safe even as some of their counterparts have started to trim allowances in response to government stimulus efforts and rapid progress in the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine.

Legislators expressed concerns that thousands of pending applications are stuck in limbo just weeks before the Small Business Administration is legally required to stop accepting them.

Lenders are preparing scores of Paycheck Protection Program applications to secure approval from the Small Business Administration by March 31, but unresolved error codes continue to hinder their efforts.

“We were already shifting to recruiting more problem solvers than people handling transactions,” said Robert Fisher, CEO of Tioga State Bank in New York and incoming chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America. “That pace of change has accelerated.”

Nonbanks had worried the end of the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility would hurt their ability to lend to small businesses. On Monday, the Federal Reserve announced the facility would be extended for three months.