Paycheck Protection Program Update 4/3/2020

To Our Valued Customers:

As many of you know, the CARES Act was signed into law on Friday, March 27th. This $2 trillion dollar aid package was designed to help mitigate some of the devastating economic effects being felt throughout our nation due to the attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.

One of the centerpieces of this legislation is the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. This $350 billion dollar loan program is administered by the banks and guaranteed by the SBA. The unique feature of this loan is that up to 100% of the principal borrowed can be forgiven if the borrower spends the funds on eligible purposes, primarily payroll related expenses, in the 8 weeks after the loan is funded. This loan is available to most small businesses with less than 500 employees, as well as many 501c3 non-profits.

Our government leaders have been promoting this program aggressively, and have announced that the loans would be available on Friday, April 3rd. This has been an extremely challenging timeline for a program of this size and scope, however due to the important national interest this serves, the SBA has been working diligently to meet this deadline.

As of 7:00 am April 3rd, the SBA is still working on the details of implementing this program, and until the procedures are written, they will not be able to take applications.  All parties remain optimistic that they will finish crafting the program and roll it out to the banks soon, perhaps later today. We will continue to do our part to prepare for this program, and will make a link available on the homepage of our website as soon as we are able to process these loan requests.

We thank you for your continued patience and loyalty during these difficult times, and ask you to continue to monitor our website so that you can get your application in as soon as possible once the program goes live.

 

Sincerely,

Bob Hickman, Chief Credit Officer