In the 3^rd round of Paycheck Protection Program loans, Customers Bank, the $19 billion Pennsylvania-based super community bank, is leading the way with over 50,000 loans in process as of last Friday and now tens of thousands more.

As of this week, the bank has approved over 3,000 loans providing a much needed lifeline to small businesses nationwide.

In the new round of stimulus, small businesses can access PPP loans through banks, chambers of commerce, credit unions, community development financial institutions, minority deposit institutions, microfinance institutions, and other lenders.

However, many of these financial institutions are experiencing PPP fatigue.

They want to help their customers, but don’t have the capacity to participate in this round. Customers Bank recognized this need and developed a PPP white-label turnkey solution enabling other financial institutions to provide a lifeline to small businesses.

Through the PPP white label program Customers Bank has been able to reach more small businesses than during the first two rounds of PPP.

The PPP white label program launched in early January and already includes dozens of chambers of commerce and CDFIs, including the African American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ and DE, The Reinvestment Fund Inc, Dominican American Chamber of Commerce and Women’s Opportunities Rescue Center among many others.

Customers Bank is assisting the members and clients of those organizations with a seamless and mostly invisible process that leverages the bank’s technology experience and prowess.

Customers Bank was one of a handful of traditional financial institutions that created a hybrid fintech model to support the SBA’s initial round of Paycheck Protection Program loans to quickly get economic relief to small businesses across the country.

By working with select fintech partners, the bank was able to participate in over 100,000 SBA-approved loans –fifth highest of all lenders in the nation– and provide an aggregate value of over $5 billion to small businesses.

“We’re part of an industry group where we’ve heard large and small institutions express concern about the reputational risk of not participating in the Second Draw PPP loans” stated Sam Sidhu, Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Customers Bank.

“At the same time, their management teams are struggling to justify participating in the new round of funding. This got us thinking about productizing our model. We are already using this for ourselves, so we can help more small businesses by offering our solution to other lenders, so thousands of banks don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

Through this white label program, 7 area organizations have signed up and can now provide a lifeline for small businesses in their communities.  

The organizations that have signed up include:

-African American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ and DE

-West Reading Community Revitalization Foundation

-Myerstown Vitality Partnership

-The Reinvestment Fund Inc

-Dominican American Chamber of Commerce

-Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

-Women’s Opportunities Resource Center (WORC)

Those interested in learning more about the White Label PPP program, should visit here.