Banks have diverted resources from traditional Small Business Administration lending to make Paycheck Protection Program loans, but many are taking steps to rev up 7(a) and 504 lending once the PPP winds down.
Operator
Good afternoon, and welcome to the PennantPark Investment Corporation s first fiscal-quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today s conference is being recorded. [Operator instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Art Penn, chairman and chief executive officer of PennantPark Investment Corporation.
Mr. Penn, you may begin your conference.
Art Penn
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, everyone. I d like to welcome you to PennantPark Investment Corporation s first fiscal-quarter 2021 earnings conference call. I m joined today by Aviv Efrat, our chief financial officer. Aviv, please start off by disclosing some general conference call information and include a discussion of our forward-looking statements.
The Federal Reserve’s Main Street Lending Program, which was designed to provide emergency support to midsize U.S. companies during the pandemic, lent out a total $17.5 billion or just 3% of its potential capacity according to data released Tuesday by the central bank.
To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog:
After months of drama that we dutifully catalogued right here, the U.S. plan to “force the sale of TikTok’s American operations” to Oracle and Walmart “has been shelved indefinitely.” The forced sale has “languished since last fall in the midst of successful legal challenges to the U.S. government’s effort by TikTok’s owner, China’s ByteDance Ltd.” - WSJ
Chinese tech giant Huawei has filed a 5th Circuit lawsuit asking the court to review “an FCC ruling last year that found the company poses a national security threat” and blocking American telecom companies from “accessing a multibillion-dollar fund to buy Huawei-made telecom gear.” The suit calls the FCC’s order “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion” - WSJ
Among the small businesses that rated their PPP loan experience as “satisfied:”
70 percent applied through a CDFI;
61 percent applied through a small bank;
48 percent worked with a credit union;
41 percent obtained their loan through a large bank; and
Only 18 percent of applicants who used a fintech company for their loan were satisfied.
The survey also found that fintech companies were less likely to approve loan applications, or they approved smaller amounts than what the businesses requested. Less than half (47 percent) of those who applied for a PPP loan through an online lender got the full amount they requested.
Alarm Raised Over Racial Disparities in How Loans Are Modified for Small-Business Owners