Paycheck Protection Program loan portal opens

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), in consultation with the U.S. Treasury Department, opened the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan portal today — Monday, Jan. 11, 2021 — at 9 a.m. Eastern time. The PPP loan portal system will initially accept First Draw PPP loan applications from participating Corporate Finance Institutes (CFIs), which include Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs), Certified Development Companies (CDCs) and Microloan Intermediaries.

The opening of the SBA loan system is designed to efficiently and effectively implement the economic aid to hard-hit small businesses, nonprofits and venues, and to ensure increased access to the PPP for minority-, veteran- and women-owned small business concerns. SBA also is calling upon its lending partners to redouble their efforts to assist eligible borrowers in underserved and disadvantaged communities.

SBA will continue to provide updates on operations during the week of Jan. 11, 2021. In addition, SBA plans to dedicate specific times to process and assist the smallest PPP lenders with loan applications from eligible small businesses.

CFI Lenders will be able to submit First Draw loans to SBA either via an application programming interface (API) tool or entry of application data via web screen method. The SBA Paycheck Protection Platform Lender Instructions — Origination Systems User Guide is available and contains information including:

• SBA PPP origination platform overview
• Account management
• Submitting PPP loan origination requests (web screen)
• Monitoring origination
• Additional resources

A presentation regarding API technical information also is available.

CFI Lenders may use the SBA PPP Lender Hotline at 833-572-0502 and find more PPP Platform Resources by clicking here.

Additional PPP information and resources can be found here:

• sba.gov
• treasury.gov/cares