A Small Bank Saved My PPP, but I’m Sticking with the Big Banks

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at about 9:30 a.m., I applied for the Paycheck Protection Program, the billion-dollar government lifeline to help small businesses weather the coronavirus pandemic. I applied through Bank of America, which has been my primary bank since 2009, when I opened my business.

It was literally within the opening moments of being able to apply for the loan. I am a small business, with exactly two employees, so getting my information inputted didn’t take more than 30 minutes. Besides, the guidance had been around for a week, so I was ready and waiting for this to come.

By Sunday night, I received an email from Bank of America saying that I needed to upload some additional information. As soon as I got into the office on Monday morning, that was done.

On Wednesday, April 8, after checking the online system a half dozen times, I noticed that there were some additional paperwork requirements, which I filled out and submitted.

The following Thursday, I got a call from someone at Bank of America, just wanting to make sure that I had submitted all the necessary paperwork. I confirmed that I had.

That was April 9.

A week went by. I checked the website the bank had set up to streamline the process for PPP every few hours.

Nothing new.

Then news came that the PPP money had run out and everyone who hadn’t received it was out of luck. And other news trickled out that the big banks favored giving the loans to their big customers. And that huge restaurant chains were getting money. And massive hoteliers with political ties got millions too. And more than 100 public companies got more than $500 million in aid. 

While the news was bleak for the big banks, small regional banks seemed to be the big winners. Twitter users raged at the big banks for not caring about the little guy.

I found solace in the fact that I refused to believe that small businesses like mine would simply be forgotten by the big banks. In life, I am not sure anyone is more pessimistic than I am, but for whatever reason, I was optimistic that Bank of America would just call me one day, with the good news that I had been approved.

But as time wore on, I became less optimistic.

At the end of the day, this was a huge mess that the world was going through. Things were changing daily, and I figured a little patience was in order. I also didn’t want to be part of the problem. So while others were applying for PPP loans through multiple banks, I didn’t want to create a bigger mess and decided not to apply with other banks.

I also took comfort in the fact that some fintech companies, like PayPal, Stripe and QuickBooks, were able to participate in the PPP loans. I am not a complete millennial when it comes to my life, but I think that stodgy old banks aren’t necessarily the best way to handle this. I took a look at QuickBooks’ application, which was an absolute breeze, but decided for the time being I wasn’t going to apply.

But after weeks of silence and news that PPP was about to get more funding, I decided to take action. Bank of America was clearly not worrying about me. I hadn’t received a single piece of communication from them for two weeks. Congress was about to fund billions more in PPP loans and there was good reason to believe that this round of funding would run out in a matter of days. I wasn’t about to take my chances again. 

First, I applied through QuickBooks. Since I use QuickBooks for my business accounting software and they have my financial data, the application process was an absolute breeze. Took me less than five minutes.

But as a precaution, I figured it was best to apply through a local bank. By then, I found a connection to a small upstate New York bank. Friday, April 24th, I sent an email to a contact at the bank. By the afternoon, I had spoken with three people at the bank and was talking to the president of the bank by later afternoon. All of my paperwork was in order from the two previous applications. By Friday evening, I was told that I would know something early the following week.

On Sunday, April 26 (the day before PPP was set to reopen), 23 days after submitting my information, Bank of America finally emailed thanking me for being a client and stating that my PPP application was ready to be submitted and that I would be contacted as soon as more information became available.

Not particularly comforting.

I don’t blame QuickBooks, Bank of America or any of the big banks for not giving me the time of day.

Tuesday, April 28, I was notified by the local bank that my application had been approved, and seven days later, the PPP money was in my account.

 [I finally got a response back from Bank of America on May 8, 2020 and from Quickbooks on May 11, 2020 that my application was declined because I had already been approved through another bank.]

First, I don’t blame QuickBooks, Bank of America or any of the big banks for not giving me the time of day. There have been plenty of reports out there that the banks are focused on the bigger customers. I totally get it. The banks can make up to 5% on the loan, so from a financial standpoint, dealing with my small two-person firm is just a waste of their time. Plus, the entire purpose of the PPP is to help pay employees and protect their jobs. Naturally, if the purpose is to protect the largest number of jobs, they would give the money to the places where they could affect the largest number of people.

I am thrilled for the small banks. I am a small firm, so helping the small guy is always a win in my book. And Congress had specifically earmarked billions to these small banks. There have been a number of articles about the boon that this has created for small banks, which have been able to get introduced to clients they probably would not have had otherwise.

But while I am extraordinarily thankful for this bank for getting me the loan, and happy for small banks, I am probably never going to be banking with them, as painful as that is for me to write.

Although I am not a millennial (I am in my 40s), I am on the cusp of being one and have a lot of millennial tendencies. I live in an amazing town with “cute” little shops, but I buy almost everything online, even shoes, clothes and food. I have a robo adviser for my investment accounts; I’ve never spoken to a real person there either. I make online reservations, haven’t read a physical book or newspaper in years and will do online research until the cows come home before making any type of purchase. I am on just about every social media platform too.

As far as my banking tendencies, I have walked into a bank about five or six times in the 10 years I have been running my business. I use online banking, remote deposits and may have a small-business banker who is supposed to manage my account, but I have never met them or spoken to them. I use the banking app almost daily. Other than a business line of credit, I don’t have any complicated banking needs.

But my experience with two local banks has given me almost nothing that I actually need or want.

My first experience with a local bank was about 10 years ago, when I signed up with a bank that was willing to give me a business line of credit, which Bank of America was unwilling to do. I remember hours of going through things with the branch manager, who was someone I met at a local networking group. I really liked her, and it was great to get the line of credit, but it was so inefficient.

I thought this was going to be how I did my banking, but my millennial technological ways got in the way. Setting up my QuickBooks to sync with the bank, I had to jump through 12 hoops, and doing simple things like wire transfers was anything but simple. At the time, they didn’t have remote deposit. Their online banking looked like it was stuck in the 1980s.

After a few years in business, I was finally able to get a line of credit with Bank of America. And I took my money out of that local bank after a few years.

 When talking to representatives of the new local bank about the PPP loan, they talked about the advantages of being able to talk to someone and personally visiting the bank, even though their one branch was more than an hour away from me. They have remote deposit (which I had been using for years), and it was explained to me that I didn’t need to come to the branch to sign the documents because they had implemented an electronic signature platform since COVID-19 (my small firm has been using electronic signatures since 2014). 

My experience with two local banks has given me almost nothing that I actually need or want.

(Side note: I think that small firms don't utilize technology as much as they should.)

The bank is over an hour from my office, so the chances of going there is approximately zero. Bank of America is about 474.8 feet from my office, and I have been inside the bank (maybe) once in the past year.

 The online banking system that they logged me into looked like it was from the AOL days. And when I got my PPP funds and tried to transfer the money to my Bank of America account, there was no option to wire transfer the money. Apparently, I had to call someone at the bank and actually talk to someone. The horror.

While I appreciated the fact that I was talking to the president of the bank and had a personal relationship with the bank personnel, 99 percent of the time I interact with the bank, it’s through their online platform. I don’t need to talk to people or see people to make a deposit. Or have to call customer service for a wire transfer. I imagine at some point, I may need something more complicated than that, but until then, all I need is an app, online banking access that was designed for 2020 use, and access to remote deposit. And someone to approve my line of credit.

So in the 11 years I’ve used Bank of America, they failed me twice; for my initial line of credit and for my PPP loan.

But the other 99 percent of the time, they’ve given me exactly what I need and want.

Maybe the small banks should take that into consideration if they want to catch up to the big mean banks.