Crestmark is pleased to announce they have funded more than $215 million for small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the SBA CARES stimulus package. More than 670 small businesses were funded by Crestmark as part of program in 38 states. More than half of the businesses were not existing clients of Crestmark and over 56 percent of the total loan sizes were for less than $100,000.
The SBA CARES Act was developed to provide economic stimulus to lessen the financial impact of mandatory business shutdowns and financial struggles caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Being a source of lending to businesses challenged by securing traditional funding is the principle on which Crestmark was built on 24 years ago.
“Providing financing to small businesses who might otherwise not be able to get the funding they need is core to what we do. Combine that with our ‘we help’ philosophy, and it was natural that our employees were all hands on deck for processing as many loans through the SBA program as quickly as we could – whether they were a client of ours or not,” said Mick Goik, head of the Commercial Finance Division of MetaBank. “It was disappointing to hear that so many businesses were being turned away by other lenders. The program was intended to help all small businesses.”
“While the PPP process was challenging due to the speed in which it was assembled, we were focused on staying engaged — and are proud to have helped so many small businesses,” said Christopher Soupal, Head of Government Guaranteed Lending. “Many of these were small businesses with less than five employees; the kind of enterprises that quickly could have been out of business. It was a tremendous honor getting to work with these entrepreneurs and their companies. Aside from the business impact, we estimate that our engagement could have saved over 20,000 jobs.”
The company is already working on a plan to assist small businesses in preparing their submissions for loan forgiveness. “We realize that this is all new to them — since it is also new to us. We’d like to ensure that they’re prepared for this next phase.”
In addition to the PPP initiative, Crestmark continued business as usual, and in April provided asset-based lending, account receivable financing, equipment financing and SBA loans of $76.5 million in 162 new client transactions.