WASHINGTON—Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Jovita Carranza is urging lenders participating in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) "to redouble [their] efforts to assist eligible borrowers in underserved and disadvantaged communities."
"SBA wants to ensure that entities in underserved and rural markets, including veterans and members of the military community, small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, women, and businesses in operation for less than two years benefit from the PPP," Carranza wrote to lenders.
She called on lenders to focus on these entities ahead of the June 30 deadline to issue new PPP loans; $129 billion of PPP funds currently remain.
More than 700 credit unions with assets of less than $1 billion are PPP lenders, and the most recent PPP loan data demonstrates their commitment to reaching the smallest businesses in need, according to data compiled by NAFCU and published earlier by CUToday.info.
PPP loan data released by the SBA reveal the average loan size of PPP loans made through credit unions is about $50,000, compared to the program's average of $112,000.