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NAFCU Thursday joined with more than 140 other trade groups – representing various industries and businesses – to urge Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would ease the forgiveness process for paycheck protection program (PPP) loans under $150,000. NAFCU has called on lawmakers and the Small Business Administration (SBA) to support automatic forgiveness for these loans.

The Paycheck Protection Program Small Business Forgiveness Act (S. 4117) would create a one-page attestation document for borrowers who have obtained PPP loans less than $150,000 to obtain forgiveness. The SBA has released a revised, more borrower-friendly PPP loan forgiveness application and an EZ version; however, NAFCU, other groups, and lawmakers continue to warn the forgiveness process remains burdensome and complex.

"PPP loans of $150,000 and under account for 86 percent of total PPP recipients, but less than 27 percent of PPP loan dollars," the trades wrote in the letter sent Thursday. "Expediting the loan forgiveness process for many of these hard-hit businesses will save more than $7 billion dollars and hours of paperwork.

"…Small businesses and their employees are the backbone of our nation’s economy and communities. Their time and resources would be better focused on getting the economy safely back up and running, not processing burdensome paperwork," the groups concluded.

Since the PPP was created as part of the CARES Act coronavirus relief package, NAFCU has consistently worked with Congress, the SBA and Treasury to ensure credit unions can lend effectively through the program and lenders and ensure lenders and borrowers are not overly burdened by the application or forgiveness process.

Hundreds of credit unions have provided loans through the program, totaling $9.6 billion. The president recently signed an extension to the PPP's authorization to Aug. 8 as roughly $130 billion in funds remained.

NAFCU Director of Political Affairs Chad Adams Thursday called on credit unions to join the association's advocacy on this issue using its Grassroots Action Center.  There, credit unions can take action and get involved on this and other issues, including:

• advocating for Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) reform to be included in the Senate fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA);
• opposing banker efforts to get free leases on military bases;
• relief from the arbitrary member business lending (MBL) cap;
• granting the NCUA authority to allow longer loan maturity limits; and
• opposing proposals that could harm consumers and hinder credit unions' ability to serve members.

Read more about what NAFCU is advocating for here.

For more information on the PPP, access NAFCU’s regularly updated FAQs. The association's coronavirus page also has several resources on congressional and regulatory efforts.