On Monday, Jan. 11 the Small Business Administration has officially reopened the Paycheck Protection Program for a subset of lenders, specifically “community financial institutions.”
We’re excited to announce that, despite tight timelines, more than 100 lenders using the Numerated Platform for PPP Originations and Forgiveness are live and able to start accepting applications for First and Second Draw PPP loans as of early this morning.
For those that have been following along with the SBA’s release timeline--perhaps through our daily PPP Prep and Launch Week Q&A Series--getting to today’s launch was no small feat.
Despite not having the Revised 2483 and 2483-SD borrower forms (as well as corresponding lender forms for First and Second Draw loans) until Friday night, and not having a functioning API until the following day, our teams worked through the weekend to accommodate the rapidly changing environment.
Every lender working with Numerated has been launched for the next round of PPP lending, can begin accepting applications from their borrowers, and can begin submitting once the SBA has provided lenders the go-ahead.
How We Launched 100+ Lenders in a Single Weekend
Like with the first round of PPP, launching on time for this round took an incredible effort and an all-hands approach. Our ability to get lenders launched for the Jan. 11 reopening relied on three key components:
- Constant Communication with Lenders: Our lenders are truly our partners and as a good partner we’ve worked tirelessly to ensure they are all kept updated and informed on the latest information regarding PPP. There are a number of ways we accomplish this.
Our daily webinars preparing banks and credit unions for the upcoming round have attracted and served more than 1,300 lenders to date. During these webinars, we’ve answered more than 2,000 lender questions in addition to providing updates on SBA guidance, the Numerated Platform, and how their institution can best prepare.
Additionally, we’re in contact with our partners throughout each day via email communications that include important and timely information for our lenders. Together, we’ve been able to ensure the banks and credit unions we work with can launch successfully and, more importantly, can be the experts in PPP lending that their borrowers need them to be. - Agile & Dogged Product Development: When the first round of PPP was announced in 2020, our team was quickly able to pivot and build a solution that could accommodate these relief loans within the Numerated Platform. Much of the hard work on the technology had already been done in the three years prior to the launch of this Program, but there was much work still to be done to ensure our lenders and their borrowers were successful. Through a number of all-nighters and over the course of countless weekends, we developed a solution that has come to be known as the No. 1 platform for PPP lending.
The new round of PPP lending opening today, with the many complexities caused by Second Draw loans, required a similar effort from our team. In preparation of today, our team pushed more than 1,000 code commits, updating and improving the solution. In the three days since the SBA released new forms, this same team has pushed nearly 150 code commits--or more than 10 percent of their total workload from the previous month. This persistence is what’s allowed lenders to start accepting First and Second Draw loans for their borrowers as early as today. - Unparalleled User Support: Behind the scenes, a number of teams are further supporting our banks and credit unions by answering tickets and creating new resources for lenders. Over this past weekend, our implementations and support teams were hard at work clearing more than 100 tickets for our lenders and ensuring they were ready to launch this morning.
Our Knowledge Center team--who creates valuable resources for Numerated Platform users--was also hard at work updating articles and adding new content to the resource hub. More than 50 articles have been updated or added to the Knowledge Center over the last week, and lenders have accessed Knowledge Center articles nearly 2,000 times during that same period.
Our teams are actively monitoring tickets to resolve issues and adding new resources at lenders’ requests to the Knowledge Center, to ensure banks and credit unison stay well informed before, during, and well after they’re live on our platform.
Lenders Can Still Automate PPP Lending for their Borrowers
While PPP did officially reopen today, it’s just the first step of a phased launch approach that the SBA is taking. As of Monday. Jan. 11 “community financial institutions” are allowed to start taking and submitting First Draw loans. On Wednesday, Jan. 13, these same institutions will be allowed to start taking and submitting Second Draw loans.
Following these two SBA-established dates, the rest of the program is anticipated to reopen to remaining financial institutions. Although an exact date has yet to be given, many have pointed to Monday, Jan. 18 as a natural point for the program to reopen to remaining lenders.
This means many banks and credit unions still have time to adopt technology that can make PPP lending exceptionally easier for their borrowers.
As we’ve noted previously on our blog, the new PPP legislation is incredibly complicated when compared to previous rounds. This complexity will make it difficult for those planning on manually filling out or processing an application--for example, the new IFR introduced last week includes 16 pages on just calculating a borrower’s loan amount.
Numerated’s platform offers the most automation and the easiest borrower experience for PPP lending by using data to pre-fill applications and automate the most tedious parts of the lender workflow. Further, lenders using the Numerated platform can get implemented with our platform in as little as 48hrs and then immediately begin accepting First and Second Draw loan applications, regardless of when your institution's PPP start date is.
Learn how; and why more than 130 lenders have chosen Numerated to process their borrowers’ PPP loans by contacting us today, or registering for our upcoming daily Q&A Sessions at 3pm EST.
