PPP loans deadline extended to May 31

Businesses and banks received a two-month extension to apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans this week, as President Joe Biden signed legislation delaying the deadline for the latest round of PPP loans from March 31 to May 31.

This week’s extension takes some of the pressure off bankers and businesses, says Steve Yeakel, president and CEO of the Virginia Association of Community Bankers. So far in this 2021 round, he says, Virginia banks have written nearly 65,000 PPP loans totaling $4.49 billion.

This round of PPP loans is more targeted, with some additional challenges that come with second-draw loans, he says: “But at the end of the day, more money is getting to more people who really need it.”

Since the PPP loan program launched in April 2020 in the wake of the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank has processed 15,700 loans totaling approximately $2.2 billion — “the vast majority” of PPP loans in Virginia, bank president and CEO John Asbury says. Tthe program has brought more than 3,000 new customers to the bank since last year, Asbury says.

Atlantic Union has received a little more than 6,000 applications since the latest round of PPP began, writing more than $591 million in loans. So far, the SBA has granted a little more than 5,000 loan applications.

Atlantic Union stopped taking PPP loan applications March 19, but has reopened the process because of the extension. “The program keeps getting better,” Asbury says. “All changes being made are to the advantage of the borrowers.”

He and Alison Holt-Fuller, who runs the bank’s PPP program in her role as head of product and enterprise first line risk management, say some changes make the program more appealing.

Those include a more streamlined forgiveness process and the ability to take a second draw — including the potential for businesses to receive two draws in 2021, as long as the covered periods required by the program don’t overlap. They say another change is that businesses may apply for both a PPP loan and a shuttered venue grant.

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