The U.S. Congress is in the midst of passing an additional stimulus package that will reinvigorate the quickly-depleted Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans for small businesses. One of the problems that became apparent quickly was much of the money in the initial package went to larger businesses with stronger banking relationships. Bigger banks were having an easier time going through the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) lending process with bigger businesses securing bigger loans that yielded bigger fees. Smaller banks and smaller businesses, in many cases, could not act swiftly enough. If and when more money becomes available to help struggling small businesses, several RPA companies have announced programs to help cut the time needed to process the crush of applications for PPP loans.
RPA provider Automation Anywhere announced a bot that automatically extracts PPP applicant information and enters it into the SBA loan origination portal. The company said it expects bots to cut the application time from three weeks to three days.
“RPA has been a game changer in its ability to automatically manage and move data between our community banks and the SBA application portal to generate loans quickly,” said John Steinmetz, CEO of Vista Bank, an Automation Anywhere customer. “Leveraging software bots will accelerate this process to allow lending institutions to distribute critical funds into the hands of thousands of small business in real time.”
Bellevue, Wash.-based Nintex said it has established a task force to help banks navigate the SBA-PPP process (many banks don’t currently offer SBA loans). It is offering free virtual sessions, whether a company is a Nintex customer or not, instructing banks how to optimize SBA-PPP processes through automated workflows.
Automation software provider Pegasystems has launched a Crisis Small Business Lending reference application for banks and credit unions trying to manage thousands of loan applications from small businesses that are coming in at once. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said the document provides a framework banks can use to dramatically improve processing efficiency via automation.