April 24, 2020

President Approve More Funding For Small Business Loans: Act Now!

We alerted you earlier that Congressional leaders had come to an agreement on a “Phase 3.5” small business relief package. The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday and as expected, the President has signed this quickly. The bill allocates $310 billion to the PPP forgivable loan program ($350 billion was the initial appropriation). $60 billion of those loans will be dedicated to smaller banks in an effort to try and help smaller businesses with relationships to these local community banks. There is also an additional $60 billion dedicated to the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL). Take advantage of this next appropriation, contact your lending institution TODAY if you have not done so yet to apply for these loans. Many predict this money will be gone in a matter of HOURS. 

With this in mind, NJGCA reached out to banking officials and our valued MBPs to inquire about this newest relief package. The general consensus is as follows: 

1 - You should attempt to complete any PPP application with a financial institution you have a pre-existing banking relationship with. When PPP was first unveiled many smaller, local banks had no knowledge of the program and/or were unable to process applications (either because they were not an approved SBA lender or they were not equipped to do so). Since that time, many smaller, local lending institutions have been brought up to speed and are now lending. As such, it may be more advantageous for you to revisit now. 

2 - If you are unable to make headway with your personal bank lending institution, please consider contacting Scott Seidman, our MBP from Heartland Payment Systems, who is taking applications on behalf of a sister company, Heartland Capital. You can contact Scott via phone (908-334-4778) or email (scott.seidman@e-hps.com) to get the process started. 

3 - No matter which lending institution you proceed with, it is of the utmost importance that you get an application in now! Some members were discouraged over last week’s news on the program’s oversubscription, and stopped moving forward with a submission. Others were told by their banks that they weren’t taking any new applications because funds were depleted. While both reactions are rational on the surface, if recent history has demonstrated anything, it is that these programs can be replenished by Congress as the need arises. If you don’t have an application in, it cannot be processed when monies are available. In simpler terms, you need to get this application in to “hold your place” in the queue. That’s really not an adequate representation of the actual process, but for our purposes today, it will suffice. The money will go quickly, but even if it does, there could be future rounds of relief. Keep trying. Keep at it.
 
Reach out to your bank and see if you can get your loan application filled out and put in line so it can be approved in the first burst after funding becomes available. We want to be clear, this is what we know as of this writing, and we are putting you on alert just to make sure you take action TODAY! We have been watching the activity in Washington all day, and wanted to make sure that you were notified the second the President’s signature hit the paper.