Accellion Data Security Breach
02/05/2021 – If you applied for unemployment or were a victim of unemployment fraud, during 2020, you will want to read this alert.
The Office of the Washington State Auditor (SAO) used the online services company Accellion to transfer data. A security incident at Accellion may have allowed unauthorized access to data being used by SAO. The link below will take you to the SAO website, where you can learn about the incident, what you can do to protect your data, and about the SAO’s next steps.
https://sao.wa.gov/breach2021/
Galina Georgieva Joins Liberty Bank
November 16, 2020 – Relationship Manager/Poulsbo Office
“I love living in a small friendly town and being part of such a great community. It is my pleasure to be able to help and support our community through my banking knowledge and experience and through my volunteering efforts. Liberty Bank is such a wonderful community bank, and I am excited to be part of this amazing team.”
Galina takes on the role of Relationship Manager at Liberty Bank’s Poulsbo branch after honing her banking skills at Islanders Bank on Orcas Island. She has worked as a teller, customer service specialist, operations supervisor, credit analyst and consumer loan officer, managing the bank’s consumer portfolio and being responsible for annual loan reviews and renewals. She also worked to approve new consumer loan requests and assisted commercial loan officers. Galina earned her BA in business administration from South-West University in Bulgaria. In addition to English, she fluently speaks German and Bulgarian. In 2018 Galina completed the credit analyst development program offered by the Washington Bankers Association. A resident of Poulsbo, Galina enjoys working out, spending time with her family, and traveling in her spare time. She has volunteered for many different non-profit organizations, including Orcas Island Lions Club, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services of San Juan Islands (DVSAS), and her daughter’s preschool.
Pandemic Scams
During this pandemic and with the holiday shopping season, we are seeing an increase in cybercrime. We care about your financial security and we want you to enjoy peace of mind, while still enjoying the convenience of the digital age. Here are a few tips to help you keep your information secure:
Log Out: Any time you finish using online banking, always log out.
Protect Your Passwords: Never share your passwords, especially over unprotected internet or Wi-Fi networks.
Trust Your Gut: Never open texts or emails that seem suspicious, especially if it’s from a person or business you don’t know, or if you did not initiate the conversation. Always go directly to known and trusted sites.
Never Share Your Information: Criminals will try to trick you into revealing private information so they can steal your money and/or your identity. Never give them your information. If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from Liberty Bank, requesting information, or access to your computer, call us immediately. Beware of fake calls from Apple and Amazon support.
Please refer to the Federal Trade Commission site for the latest scams and on how to file a fraud report, if you do become a victim. https://www.ftc.gov/
Michelle Connor Joins Liberty Bank Board
Poulsbo, WA (Oct. 21, 2020): Liberty Bank, which recently changed its name from Liberty Bay Bank and expanded from Poulsbo to open a new office in Bellevue, has named Forterra President and Chief Executive Michelle Connor to its board of directors.
Connor has served Forterra, a real estate non-profit dedicated to securing and preserving land in the Pacific Northwest, for 25-years, participating in more than 400 transactions worth $500 million and providing executive leadership in all phases of public policy, community engagement, negotiations, fundraising, and innovative finance. She has a track record of community engagement, including participating in the International Women’s Forum, Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission, USDA National Urban and Community Forest Advisory Council, and the Urban Land Institute.
“I’m enthusiastic to support a community bank that is focused on stewarding the financial needs of local businesses and entrepreneurs who are the heart of our communities,” said Connor, a third-generation Washingtonian who grew up on Budd Inlet in South Puget Sound and now lives in Seattle.
“Michelle brings a vision of collaboration and environmental stewardship, with a distinct community focus. She is intelligent, has a wealth of experience, and a leadership style that is truly admirable,” said Liberty Bank Chief Executive Officer Rick Darrow. “We are honored to have her join our Board of Directors.”
Connor earned her M.S. from the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources and B.A. from the Evergreen State College.
Susan Preston Joins Liberty Bank Board
Liberty Bank names angel investing guru Susan Preston to board of directors
Poulsbo, WA (Oct. 13, 2020): Liberty Bank, which recently changed its name from Liberty Bay Bank and expanded from Poulsbo to open a new office in Bellevue, has named world-recognized angel investor Susan Preston to its board of directors.
Preston, a savvy angel investor and globally recognized author, consultant and speaker on angel and venture financing, is managing partner of SeaChange Fund. She has worked in senior management of early-stage companies and was a partner in three law firms. She has taught in the MBA program at the University of Washington and is former chair and lead instructor for the Angel Resource Institute, a global investor and entrepreneur education organization.
“We welcome Susan and her vast expertise to the board of Liberty Bank,” said Liberty Bank CEO Rick Darrow. “Her breadth and depth of knowledge will help us make sound financial decisions as we grow our bank and assist more businesses in the communities we serve.”
Preston earned her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law and her Bachelor of Science in microbiology and public health, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Washington State University. She has served as a director on more than 35 boards of private and public entities.
Liberty Bank is a forward-thinking, customer-centric community bank committed to providing the best banking service and customer satisfaction in the Puget Sound Region. Liberty Bank is locally minded, civically engaged, and has an abiding appreciation for the communities it serves. The bank strives to anticipate and understand clients’ personal and business financial issues and find the best solutions to move them forward. Liberty Bank is headquartered in Poulsbo, Wash., and has an office in Bellevue, Wash. Find out more at www.libertybanknw.com.
Bellevue Poised to Emerge Stronger from Pandemic, Leaders Say
Written By John Stearns, 425business.com
August 5, 2020
Mayor, deputy mayor field questions during State of the City webinar
Bellevue’s citizens, businesses, and government have been financially shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the city was jarred by downtown rioting and looting on May 31, but the city’s foundation is solid and Bellevue is positioned to emerge stronger from 2020’s challenges and remain a beacon for others, two City leaders said Thursday.
Patrick Bannon, middle, of the Bellevue Downtown Association, poses a question during an online State of the City event Thursday with Mayor Lynne Robinson and Deputy Mayor Jared Nieuwenhuis.
“I’ve never been more bullish about Bellevue,” Deputy Mayor Jared Nieuwenhuis said during an hour-long State of the City webinar during which he and Mayor Lynne Robinson fielded questions from Patrick Bannon, president of the Bellevue Downtown Association (BDA).
Nieuwenhuis is confident the city will emerge stronger and better after the pandemic.
“We still are that shining city on a hill because of the makeup of our residents, quite frankly — residents that value and ensure a strong sense of community, a commitment to public safety, excellent schools, world-class parks, and a business climate that, quite frankly, is the envy of cities all over the country. So Bellevue is still that place that you want to be,” he said.
Robinson acknowledged the difficulty facing the community and businesses during the pandemic, “but from what I hear regionally and federally, and locally, our city is better positioned than any other city to get through this and we’ll get through it together,” she said. “We have to continue helping each other.”
If people feel like they’re not receiving the help they need, she encouraged them to contact the City or email her directly. Often, the need simply needs to be connected to resources, Robinson said.
A big need she hears is rental assistance for businesses and individual households. She lauded Bellevue’s approach to put “hundreds of thousands of dollars into rental assistance” to ease rent burdens.
Robinson and Nieuwenhuis highlighted some of the City’s responses to the pandemic, including from the BDA and Bellevue Chamber, such as posting critical information on websites, distributing personal protection equipment, navigating loan programs, deferring local small-business taxes, suspending water shutoffs, permitting expanded outdoor dining, and distributing postcards and flyers with key information in multiple languages.
Robinson cited small businesses helping one another and mentioned Poulsbo-based Liberty Bank as an example. The bank did an “amazing job” of providing 300 PPP loans to businesses amounting to $50 million, she said, citing a bank-wide number. The bank opened an office in Bellevue in February to serve King County and its president and chief lending officer, Alan Fulp, heads the local office and sits on BDA’s board.
About 30 percent of those PPP loans were made in Bellevue, Fulp said in a follow-up interview. Robinson and Fulp noted everyone who applied for a PPP loan through Liberty Bank got one.
Overall, city businesses received 4,000 PPP loans preserving 35,000 jobs, Robinson said.
Addressing a question from Bannon about workforce trends, Nieuwenhuis earlier this year had talked about the importance of a diverse economy in Bellevue. Ironically, he said, the city’s tech-heavy economy has worked to its advantage during the pandemic, with many employees easily working from home.
“That’s been very helpful for our economy for sure,” he said.
The retail, lodging, and restaurant industries haven’t been so fortunate. With unemployment rates of about 48 percent in the hotel and food services industries, 26 percent in retail trade, and 22 percent in arts/entertainment/recreation — all disproportionately affecting the bottom of the income scale, he said, citing the City’s desire to help.
There are “glimmers of hope,” though, for those industries, with hotel occupancy doubling since April, to about 20 percent; traffic volumes into the city rising by more than 50 percent; and pedestrian use of crosswalks up 70 percent to 80 percent, “so there are more people that are out, about, hopefully, shopping, going to restaurants or coffee, or you name it.”
Biking is up, too, hitting all-time highs, he said.
The City will monitor the work-from-home trend to see how it affects the tech landscape, Nieuwenhuis said, calling the situation fluid.
Asked about affordable housing, Robinson said housing supply and affordability is no longer considered optional for Bellevue.
“Now we realize that it’s really essential for economic vitality and for that high livability that we all want — and frankly, right now we do not have a full spectrum of housing affordabilities,” she said, adding that less than 10 percent of Bellevue’s housing is affordable to a family of four earning $100,000 per year.
The City is focused on the issue, she said, examining rezoning properties in growth areas to accommodate affordable housing, for example. It decreased parking requirements in transit-oriented development zones for affordable housing, added incentives for market-rate housing to include affordable housing, and is partnering with companies like Microsoft to retain affordable housing already in Bellevue.
The City’s goal three years ago was to create 2,500 affordable units in 10 years. It already has created 500 affordable units and has 900 more in the pipeline, she said.
Like other cities, the pandemic is hurting Bellevue’s budget, which is expected to face a $12 million to $16 million shortfall, Nieuwenhuis said. Pandemic recovery could take two to three years, he said, hopeful Bellevue can recover quicker. Budget deliberations begin in September, he said, encouraging business and resident input.
Asked if Bellevue would consider a payroll tax to address revenue challenges, as Seattle has, Nieuwenhuis cited a council colleague in not wanting to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
“I think this is perhaps apropos to the payroll tax,” Nieuwenhuis said. “I don’t think there is any appetite to move anything like that forward in the city of Bellevue. … Businesses want to be here in Bellevue and that’s primarily because they see where we see as a City … the business community as a partner,” he said, noting 45-plus corporate headquarters in the city, 100 international companies and 150,000 jobs.
Robinson hopes to see more people living in Bellevue who work in Bellevue. Only about 10 percent of people living in Bellevue work there, which heavily affects transportation, she said, excited by the East Link light rail extension coming in 2023, which she said continues ahead of schedule and under budget. She also looks forward to the Eastrail bike-pedestrian route getting connected, providing a safe throughway north and south of the city.
Nieuwenhuis referenced the rioting and looting May 31, calling it a painful lesson.
“I think Bellevue lost a little bit of its innocence that day,” he said. “That was something that was always somewhere else, that something like that could not happen to Bellevue, but it did.”
The City has arrested 23 people from that incident so far, with more coming, and the City is pressuring county prosecutors to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, he said. The City also is working to ensure such an incident doesn’t recur and to be more prepared if one appears possible.
Nieuwenhuis praised City police for their response and overall quality, ranking among six percent of U.S. forces nationally accredited. A nationally accredited police department has never ended up under a federal consent decree for a pattern of excessive force. Accreditation requires meeting 400-plus standards on best policing practices, including promoting community building, accountability, diversity training, and de-escalation — so Bellevue police already are doing what many are asking of police, but City police are open to continuous improvement, he said.
Asked about national issues of systemic racism, equity, and inclusion, he noted the city’s growing minority population — 41 percent in 2010, 51 percent in 2018 — and said the City overall has taken diversity seriously for years, listing staff and community efforts focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Asked about inspiring moments in recent weeks, Nieuwenhuis was inspired to see businesses and residents meet to clean up downtown the morning after the riots. While the damage was traumatic, businesses remained positive about Bellevue and wanted to be part of the solution, he said.
Robinson agreed.
“But the most inspiring moment for me was when we showed up at 10 o’clock at the downtown park to start cleanup, the Bellevue High School students had already been there since 6 a.m. and had done most of the work in the downtown park — and I’ve never seen high school students get up that early,” she said. “And I was just so impressed and I wish I could thank them personally.”
City leaders talk economic outlook, police reform and more with Bellevue Downtown Association
The annual State of the City with the BDA was held as a virtual fireside chat, livestreamed Thursday, July 30
Author: Haley Ausbun, Friday, July 31, 2020 9:29am
Published by: Bellevue Reporter
For Bellevue Mayor Lynne Robinson and Deputy Mayor Jared Nieuwenhuis, the most inspiring day this year was not the day a large protest occurred in downtown over the death of George Floyd, defunding the police and social change, which simultaneously saw property destruction and looting at Bellevue Square Collection, but the day after: June 1.
Residents, Bellevue High School students and business owners were out the next morning cleaning up any graffiti and broken glass in downtown. Nieuwenhuis said he was amazed by everyone’s positive attitude, and Robinson said she was inspired by the students there at 6 a.m. who took care of much of the cleanup.
“I have every confidence Bellevue will emerge stronger and better than it is today once we shed this pandemic. We still are that shining city on the hill because of the makeup of our residents,” Nieuwenhuis said. “Residents that value and ensure a strong sense of community.”
The Mayor and Deputy Mayor discussed this and more at the annual Bellevue Downtown Association (BDA) State of the City via livestream, Thursday, July 30. BDA President Patrick Bannon asked questions based on input from BDA members to city leadership that ranged from systemic racism to economic development. You can watch the full discussion via Facebook here.
Robinson said Bellevue may be in a better position than most cities to recover following the pandemic, but it’s still a difficult time for the community. She praised businesses and associations, nonprofits, Overlake Hospital for treating COVID-19 patients, residents and even police for what she said was an example of deescalation at the May 31 Bellevue protests.
Nieuwenhuis said that the looting that day showed that police are essential, and that it should be uncontroversial. He said the city is pressuring the King County Prosecutors that the people who are being identified as stealing or destroying property at Bellevue Square and a few neighboring businesses are being punished at the full extent of the law. He also said police are working to keep this form of property destruction from happening again.
He also praised the police department for being nationally accredited, which is something 6% of departments in the nation have.
“We are always open to a continuous improvement in the city of Bellevue, no matter what department it is,” Nieuwenhuis said. “But I’m so proud of our police department proactively doing so many of these things already. At the end of the day, we’ve got a great police department, we always can do better.”
The city council also took a pledge following the protests to review police department use-of-force policies and gather input from the community on public safety.
When asked about systemic racism, Nieuwenhuis discussed several diversity programs and cultural competency training for city employees. Mayor Robinson added that there was always room to do more.
When pivoting to questions about development, Bannon asked city leadership about the vision for downtown and future developments, and how COVID-19 will impact that work. Much of the discussion was optimistic, as Robinson discussed the important bike and pedestrian connections being made through the downtown core, transportation projects continuing through Bellevue during the shutdown as it was deemed essential construction work by Gov. Jay Inslee, larger tech companies supporting Bellevue’s economy, and small to mid sized businesses supporting each other.
In regards to small business, Robinson said they’ve received 4,000 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, preserving 35,000 jobs in Bellevue. She said what’s most inspiring is small businesses helping each other. New Liberty Bank helped other local companies get 300 PPP loans, valuing at $50 million.
In the pandemic, tech companies have pivoted more successfully during the pandemic than other businesses, which put Bellevue at an advantage. Still, other industries in the city are sitting with high unemployment rates. Hotel and food service industry is seeing a 48% unemployment rate. But Nieuwenhuis said traffic and pedestrian increase in recent weeks in Bellevue is a good sign the workforce trend will improve and consumers are going out and supporting local business.
Robinson said as Bellevue has received a wave of development growth, balancing amenities can be a challenge. But the city is using planning processes to make sure no one neighborhood has better schools, parks and health access than another.
The biggest need Robinson has said she’s hearing is a call for rental assistance for businesses and residents. Bellevue did not put a rental moratorium in place like many other cities during the pandemic. Robinson said instead they’ve put funds into rental assistance so once people get back to earning money, they will not have back pay.
As they discussed housing supply and affordability, Robinson said the city used to believe affordable housing was optional in Bellevue. Now it’s become clear it is essential for economic vitality— less than 10% of housing is affordable to a family of four earning $100,000 a year, and there’s little affordable housing. The council is now looking at incentives to encourage some affordable housing in growth areas, and work to retain the affordable residences they have.
As the city looks forward, recovery is expected to take place in two to three years. Bellevue, with 45 global companies headquartered here, might recover sooner as it maintains a business friendly position.
“I know this is a very challenging time, but from what I hear regionally, federally and locally, our city is better positioned than any other city to get through this, and we’ll get through it together,” Robinson said.
Kitsap businesses, banks navigate fraught federal small-business loan program
Author: Christian Vosler, Kitsap Sun, Published May 2, 2020
Spring is the beginning of peak season in the restaurant business, and the time of year when Brett Hayfield usually starts hiring more employees to work at his two restaurants, the Yacht Broiler Club in Silverdale and The Boat Shed in Manette.
This spring, those hirings turned into layoffs as the coronavirus swept across the country, and Washington state ordered all non-essential businesses to close indefinitely.
“This is our time, so to get shut down, it couldn’t be any worse,” Hayfield said.
Like many small business owners affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hayfield looked to the federal government for help. But the federal loan program meant to prop up small businesses has proven difficult to navigate both for owners and banks tasked with making the loans.
The Payroll Protection Program (PPP), which is administered through the Small Business Administration, is a low-interest loan that businesses with 500 or fewer employees can use to pay workers for up to eight weeks, plus certain other expenses like rent and utilities. Businesses don’t have to pay back the loan if they use at least 75% of the money to keep or hire employees.
Since it opened on April 2, the program has been the focus of nationwide scrutiny —large, publicly-traded companies like Shake Shack received millions in loans while local businesses struggled to have their applications approved. Applicants have run into problems with vague guidelines and technical glitches with the online loan portal.
Kitsap business owners who have been successfully approved for funding, like Hayfield, still face difficulties. A PPP loan doesn’t solve the problems facing a restaurant that has laid off employees and isn’t bringing in any revenue.
“We basically have to hire them back even though we’re not open,” Hayfield said.
To have a loan forgiven, a business must use it within eight weeks to pay its employees. Funding can’t be used to pay vendors, purchase inventory or many other expenses. The additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits that were approved as part of the $2 trillion federal coronavirus relief package means many laid-off employees are making more at home than they would at work.
“We get no benefit out of that, we’re getting people off unemployment, which is admirable, but the employees quite frankly are going to be disappointed because they’re making more money right now than they will from the operator,” Hayfield said.
On top of that, when restaurants reopen, it will likely be at a reduced capacity. Seasonal employees may be laid off after returning to work because revenue will be at a fraction of normal levels.
“It’s a real Catch-22,” Hayfield said.
Navigating the system
Local banks, meanwhile, have had to deal with a high volume of applications, technology issues and vague rules from the federal government concerning the loans.
Liberty Bank has had more success than most in Kitsap. The Poulsbo lender (formerly Liberty Bay Bank), has boasted a 100% success rate with its applications, meaning every business, nonprofit and church that applied was approved for a loan. In total, Liberty Bank has secured $40 million and counting for more than 210 businesses.
But it wasn’t easy. The first round of PPP funding, $349 billion, ran out in 13 days. Congress approved a second round of funding of $310 billion, which opened for applications April 27 and is expected to be depleted just as quickly.
During the first round of funding, Liberty Bank employees worked for two weeks straight, including on Easter, to put together applications and submit them to the SBA.
“There was a dedication to it, knowing that we were going to be helping small businesses that were struggling in our community,” Liberty Bank CEO Rick Darrows said.
During the second round, the bank used a special program to preload batches of applications. Soon after applications opened Monday morning, the system crashed. Employees kept resending the applications, slipping one or two through at a time as the system would allow.
Darrow said the guidelines from the federal government weren’t set even as the program was being rolled out.
“You had a situation where, as a banker, you had to make a decision, are you going to participate in this knowing that not all of the rules have been put into place?” Darrow said.
Chris Frazier, who owns Waterfront CPA Group in Silverdale, has seen both sides of the coin. Frazier’s accounting firm normally makes most of its revenue during the first four months of the year, when people seek help filing their tax returns.
The downturn has forced Frazier to keep seasonal employees at home even as the firm has been flooded with questions from small business owners about how they can get help from the federal government. Frazier applied for and received a PPP loan through Liberty after first trying with Chase Bank.
“In 13 days (the PPP) was out of money and (Chase) never said anything,” Frazier said.
Liberty not only answered the phone but was able to process Waterfront CPA’s application the same day. The Poulsbo bank has also been accepting applications from businesses that aren’t current customers.
“Having somebody kind of go out of their way and say you’re not a client here, we’ll take you, for me that was huge,” Frazier said.
Smaller regional banks may have more success in securing funding because of their size, Frazier said. Many international banks were flooded with thousands of applications minutes after the program portal opened. Some banks restricted who could apply — only processing applications for those with an existing account or loan on the books.
“If you were basically waiting in line and nobody was getting back to you, Liberty (Bank) was processing your loan,” Frazier said.
Moving forward
The program has still been helpful for some local businesses.
Haylee Herdman, the owner of Herdman Plumbing in Silverdale, found her business suddenly shut down when Washington state deemed construction a non-essential service in late March. Most of Herdman’s business comes from new plumbing on construction projects.
“We had to furlough pretty much the majority of our employees because we had no work for them,” Herdman said.
Herdman was able to weather April on the income made in March before work shut down, but the company is expecting a rough May. Funding from the PPP should help to pay employees that are back at work as of Wednesday.
“We are putting what we got towards payroll and employer-paid benefits that go to our employees and utilities and rent,” Herdman said.
Steve Sego, who owns The Dock Bar & Eatery in Port Orchard, has been able to rehire some of his employees that were laid off during the shutdown thanks to $56,000 in federal funding.
The restaurant has transitioned to providing takeout and providing delivery in South Kitsap. The Dock’s landlord has also waived rent for April and May.
“We found a path, we’re not prospering, but we’re keeping the doors open and we’re preparing that transition to being a viable restaurant again,” Sego said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that an additional $600 a month in unemployment benefits for laid-off workers was approved as part of the federal coronavirus relief package. The additional unemployment money is $600 a week.
How a Seattle business owner got an SBA loan that works for him
Author: Michelle Li (KING5)Published: 5:38 PM PDT April 24, 2020 Updated: 4:02 PM PDT April 25, 2020
BELLEVUE, Wash. — As small business owners struggle to get relief as the second round of federal funding gets doled out by the Small Business Administration and local lenders, other business owners and lenders are sharing what worked for them during the first go-round.
In the first round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, the SBA of Seattle says it along with its lending partners approved 14 years of SBA lending in just 14 days. 74-percent of the loans approved were $150,000 or less, though, across the state, Washington banks doled out more than $4.9 billion.
If there’s something to be learned from the first round of funding, it’s that business owners have to act fast and shop around.
That’s exactly what Ryan Glant of Pacific Iron and Metal did to secure a loan for his 103-year-old company — a company that survived the Spanish Flu and the Great Depression. Glant is the president and CEO of Glant Pacific Companies in Sodo and employs about 100 people. The PPP funding will allow him to rehire some of those he had previously laid off.
“We just feel really fortunate it,” said Glant. “It’s a lifeline. Unfortunately, in some cases, people didn’t ‘get it’ or realize you need to be on top of it early and often.”
Glant had been in touch with Liberty Bank’s president Alan Fulp, despite having a bank account with a large national bank. The community bank is an expansion of the Liberty Bay Bank in Poulso and had just expanded earlier this year to Bellevue.
“I have happened to know Alan from the community for a long time,” said Glant. “So just by happenstance, we started connecting. Things change and our environments change, so it behooves us to explore other potential partnerships.”
And that’s the relationship that paid off.
Glant said his team worked on three separate bank applications when the first round of funding was announced. Liberty Bank was the only one to come through.
“Liberty Bank was really straightforward,” said Glant. “Alan’s team was awesome. We did apply to three different banks, and they all had very different processes. But Alan made it really streamlined and therefore our SBA loan confirmation quickly came back.”
Nationwide, the first round of forgivable loans sent $342.3 billion to about 1.6 million businesses nationwide. And though it seems like a staggering amount of help, Fulp said it was only anticipated to bail out a third of small businesses.
“It’s been characterized a little bit as like building an airplane in the sky,” said Fulp. “If we’re the bank that’s pushing the money out the door, we want to make sure that we have it right. And so I think a lot of banks were uncomfortable with the uncertainty of that, and they chose to take a step back and wait for the details to emerge, which is reasonable.”
Fulp said the process itself — at least for the first round — was pretty easy. The borrower must fill out a special application. Then the bank has to submit it to the SBA. The SBA has a special portal set up for submitting the loans, and when that happens successfully, banks receive a number confirming the SBA has successfully received the application.
“Then you know that you’re confirmed in the system,” said Fulp. “Up until you receive that number, you don’t have a place in line. I would say it’s not a complicated process, but the bank has to be familiar with that SBA portal process, and not every bank is an SBA lender.”
Small business owners across the country have complained their banks sat or fumbled their applications. Perhaps Liberty’s flexibility as a smaller, community bank helped speed along the process.
“I agree with that,” said Fulp.
Fulp said Liberty Bank helped more than 50 area businesses, securing millions of dollars in payroll.
“We’ve had to take a little bit of a step of faith that the federal government is going to iron out these details and take care of the banks that are pushing the money out the door, in addition to taking care of the small businesses,” said Fulp. “I think as things have evolved, it has been a good process.”
Scammers Pretending to be the FDIC
FDIC Consumer News, March 23, 2020