Customers Bank Increases PPP Commitment to $500MM With OakNorth



Customers Bank has processed loan applications totaling more than $200 million to help support American businesses. It is expanding its capacity to process loans under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by partnering with British fintech OakNorth.

When the national disaster was announced on March 13, Customers Bank pledged to put $200 million to work restoring the American economy. In just one week, the bank has accepted 500 applications, processing 300 of them so far for submittal to the Small Business Administration.

“We are proud to be playing a role in the recovery of the American economy,” said Jay Sidhu, executive chairman of Customers Bank. “Our team members have been working around the clock to get these loan applications processed. We know small business needs help and we will deliver for them using OakNorth’s solution to support them from application throughout the entire forgiveness journey.”

In the ensuing weeks, demand for the loans has been overwhelming, creating capacity issues for many banks. Customers Bank Chief Operating Officer, Sam Sidhu, worked to apply technology to open bottlenecks.

“We are pleased to be partnering with British fintech OakNorth to apply advanced software strategies and algorithms to create a smooth online application process that uses big data to help us speed underwriting while reducing risk,” said Sam Sidhu. “OakNorth was able to get the solution up and running within 72 hours from our first conversation, so we will have an integrated online application system deployed by Monday.”

The Paycheck Protection Program is chief among the tools used by the Bank’s SBA Government Guaranteed Lending and Small Business teams to get capital flowing in the economy. These loans make up the lion’s share of disaster lending to date.

PPP is the hallmark of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump with the express purpose of helping Americans and the organizations that employ them weather the COVID-19 pandemic.


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