The agency overhauled its system for the Paycheck Protection Program on Wednesday. Lenders hope it addresses the access issues and a crash that bedeviled the effort’s first week.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Treasury secretary that the Financial Stability Oversight Council should create a liquidity facility to deal with a flood of forbearance requests brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
They have asked the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the chief anti-money-laundering regulator, to let them collect customer information and verify it after the loan application is processed in order to speed approvals.
Community advocates would like to see changes to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, but say regulators should suspend such efforts until the coronavirus pandemic has passed.
Lenders and community groups say it's a mistake for the banking agencies to move forward during a national crisis. But Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting says updated Community Reinvestment Act rules would speed relief to neighborhoods and small businesses.
The Federal Reserve is temporarily altering the growth restriction it placed on Wells Fargo in 2018 so that the bank can make additional loans to small and midsize business that need funding to weather the coronavirus pandemic.
The lending facility is for companies with more than 500 employees that are disqualified from the relief program for small businesses and too small for federal loans reserved for larger companies.
