Community Banks and the Paycheck Protection Program

No matter how you look at the role of community banks in distributing the initial $669 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds, the numbers remain staggering. A recent FDIC report (see sidebar for more details) broke down the performance by community banks a few different ways, all of them impressive:

• FDIC-insured community banks held $148 billion, or 31%, of bank-held PPP loans, compared to their 15% share of all bank loans.
• More than 75% of co…