Main Street Monday – The SBA Direct Forgiveness Portal is Live for Lenders who Opted In

August 9, 2021

Delaney Sexton
Contributing Editor

Main Street Monday – The SBA Direct Forgiveness Portal is Live for Lenders who Opted In

“The SBA’s new streamlined application portal will simplify forgiveness for millions of our smallest businesses — including many sole proprietors — who used funds from our Paycheck Protection Program loans to survive the pandemic,” states SBA Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman. “The vast majority of businesses waiting for forgiveness have loans under $150,000. These entrepreneurs are busy running their businesses and are challenged by an overly complicated forgiveness process. We need to deliver forgiveness more efficiently so they can get back to enlivening our Main Streets, sustaining our neighborhoods and fueling our nation’s economy.”

Last week, the SBA announced the opening of their new PPP Direct Forgiveness Portal for loans that are $150,000 or less. This Wednesday, July 4th, the portal officially opened for lenders who opted in. Lenders can still opt-in by going to https://directforgiveness.sba.gov.

Over 600 banks have already opted-in to the portal so far, and this simplifies the forgiveness process for over 2.17 million borrowers. This represents 30% of all unforgiven PPP loans worth $150,000 or less.

All that is necessary for a borrower to use the portal is the exact total of their PPP loan and their tax ID number or social security number. The portal will autofill a majority of the information, and the borrower fills out the rest of the necessary information. They then confirm their e-signature and send it to the lender. After the lender reviews the information and ensures its accuracy, they approve it, and it goes directly to the SBA.

The SBA also provides a COVID Revenue Reduction Score for every Second Round PPP loan that is $150,000 or less. It is visible to all lenders and is for optional use. The score fulfills the borrower’s requirement for revenue reduction documentation in the forgiveness application.

“The streamlined and efficient SBA PPP loan forgiveness portal will help borrowers and lenders move forward with economic growth and job creation following the pandemic. We encourage other lenders to join Customers Bank and opt-in to the SBA portal,” says Sam Sidhu, President and CEO of Customers Bank.

Source:
SBA Press Release