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Ahead of today's Senate Small Business Committee hearing to examine the future of the Small Business Administration's (SBA) paycheck protection program (PPP), NAFCU's Brad Thaler reiterated the association's call for a simplified loan forgiveness process for program loans under $150,000 and urged the committee to work with fellow lawmakers to exclude Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) advances from the PPP forgiveness calculation.

On simplifying the forgiveness process, Thaler, NAFCU’s vice president of legislative affairs, expressed credit unions’ continued concerns about the time and costs needed to complete the existing forgiveness application.

“Many of those small businesses have had to seek outside assistance to help them with the [forgiveness] form,” wrote Thaler. “Unfortunately, the time and money spent on forgiveness paperwork takes away from a small business’s ability to serve its customers and continue to be able to pay its employees – a direct contradiction to the spirit of the PPP, which was designed to provide simplified aid to those in dire need of assistance.”

Thaler noted that efforts to simplify the application process were addressed earlier this year when the SBA took created the 3508EZ form. However, he went on to express the need for additional simplification in this area, citing that NAFCU members reported they “do not see a huge difference in terms of processing the application.”

Thaler also shared support for a second round of PPP loans, calling for a portion of the funds to be set aside for community financial institutions like credit unions. In addition, Thaler noted that an important step toward ensuring credit unions can continue to help their members would be to provide NAFCU-supported relief for credit unions “from the arbitrary member business lending (MBL) cap for loans to small businesses recovering from the impacts of the pandemic.”

The hearing is set to begin at 10 a.m. Eastern and can be viewed via live webcast on the committee’s website. NAFCU will continue to work with Congress, the SBA, and the Treasury to ensure credit unions concerns about the program are heard; stay tuned to NAFCU Today for the latest developments related to the PPP.