United Community Bank reserves $960 million for small business customers

United Community Bank announced it has successfully processed 6,918 applications through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) under the CARES Act, reserving more than $960 million for small business applicants. As one of the largest preferred SBA lenders in the Southeast, United Community Bank mobilized its existing SBA team and hundreds of additional bankers to expedite application processing. Following the announcement of the CARES Act, United quickly developed and continues to refine a new, electronic loan application portal to automate the entire process.

“We are proud of the hard work and commitment shown by our bankers to achieve this volume of successful loans,” said Rich Bradshaw, Chief Banking Officer. “By mobilizing nearly 500 members of our team, we were able to process more applications than many banks our size, including many that are larger than United. We are hopeful the government will allocate more funding to this program quickly, enabling us to help additional small businesses survive the economic crisis. We believe this SBA program plays a critical role in supporting our communities during this challenging time and we are honored to play our part to connect Main Street America with the SBA funding so urgently needed.”

As of April 16, the $349 billion allocated to assist small businesses affected by Coronavirus (COVID-19) as part of the PPP under the CARES Act has been fully allocated by the SBA. United will continue to accept interest forms from interested applicants on ucbi.com/cares in the event additional funding is allocated by the federal government and the PPP application portal is reopened. Additionally, other temporary programs established by the CARES Act and provided by the SBA can be found here: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/coronavirus-relief-options.