Mike Ricks, the Deputy Director of the Small Business Administration in Louisiana announced an SBA program with so few restrictions it seems the government is giving the money away to keep the economy on track.
The SBA Paycheck Protection Program is potentially forgivable loan program.
And, according to Ricks, the program in Louisiana is among the leading states involved in the rollout:
“I am proud to say, we’re already making loans under this program in Louisiana.”
Ricks explains how Louisiana became one of the first states to rollout the loans, “We had our lenders ready and prepared on legacy systems to submit those applications.”
The Paycheck Protection Program is designed to get businesses with less than 500 employees the money they need to meet payrolls.
A streamlined loan application and expedited loan guarantee process is being used to get the money where it needs to go in days, not weeks or months.
“If a delegated express lender, designated by the SBA, currently operating on E-Tran, our electronic mission application that the lender can use. They are submitting those loan applications to the SBA and they are getting a guarantee back within 15 minutes when they apply this loan.”
The PPP is so new, the government is rushing the program to the people without some of the back end provisions in place as yet.
“The biggest concern for the lender is ‘are we going to get that guarantee?’. So we do have a system in place to do that,” Ricks continues. “The other is we don’t have any specific program guidance for the lender right now.”
Ricks explains that will come as the loan program evolves, but again, the idea is to get the money into the hands of the businesses that need it.