Wintrust Financial has received 6,973 applications for $1.27 billion in loans since it opened its platform on Jan. 11 to accept client submissions for the latest round of the Paycheck Protection Program from the U.S. Treasury Department and Small Business Administration. Since the SBA opened its portal for application submissions on Jan. 19, Wintrust has received funding authorization from the SBA for approximately 96% of its clients.
For this latest round of the PPP, Wintrust has received more than $1.11 billion in loan requests from 6,030 small businesses in Illinois, $75.5 million in loan requests from 639 small businesses in Wisconsin and an additional $95.8 million in loan requests from 304 small business borrowers with operations in other states. The median loan size is approximately $57,000 currently. To date, Wintrust has funded $4.59 billion in PPP loans since the beginning of the program in March 2020.
“On Dec. 27, the Consolidated Appropriations Act became law, mandating a third round of funding for the PPP program as well as substantive changes to the PPP program,” Edward J. Wehmer, founder and CEO of Wintrust Financial, said. “Again, our team worked tirelessly to update our systems and with our communities to make sure all eligible businesses could receive the new funds as quickly as possible. We opened our portal for applications on Jan. 11 — a week ahead of the SBA’s portal opening — so we could get our clients’ applications submitted in a timely fashion when the SBA’s portal first opened on Jan. 19. At the same time, we were able to employ select branches as PPP resource centers for technology access and program expertise in the communities with the greatest need.”
Wintrust is no longer accepting new PPP applications through its online portal but still encourages those eligible for this round of the PPP to contact their local Wintrust branch.
“Difficult times remain for many in our communities,” Wehmer said. “Like the two previous rounds of PPP funding, Wintrust has made the businesses and communities hit the hardest by this pandemic, including low-to-moderate income business and minority communities, a focal point for our support. We join everyone in hoping that we are seeing the light at the end of this tunnel. In the meantime, we will continue to work to provide those who are eligible with increased peace of mind. We will focus on those businesses and communities that need our help the most.”
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