Pub. 9 2019-2020 Issue 6

2 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S — H E L P I N G C O L O R A D A N S R E A L I Z E D R E A M S www.coloradobankers.org BY DON CHILDEARS, CEO, COLORADO BANKERS ASSOCIATION What We’ve Done for You Lately A WORD FROM CBA Y our team at CBA has been incredibly busy helping Colorado banks deal with COVID-19, and, in particular, the CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). This $350B, soon to be $600B, life preserver for the nation’s small businesses relies in huge part on banks large and small to deliver the funds quickly and efficiently. In the meantime, your CBA teamhas worked fromhome as most of you have, utilizing technology to work outside the office that we’ve used for several years. In the three weeks between March 23 and April 10, CBA has provided the following services. CBA has delivered a nonstop information flow with 44 emails, dozens of website and social media postings, and seven CBA produced webinars, often two per day, most at no charge. One even drew over 200 participants, with only 20 hours’ notice. In addition, we have hosted weekly peer-to-peer meetings and fielded calls and emails (and listened to bankers’ frustrations) at the pace of 50-60 a day as bankers pelted CBA with legitimate questions. It accelerated to even higher levels after PPP launched April 3 (one week after Congress adopted it!); you sought answers to key issues where slowly many were resolved while countless others remained. CBA was an accessible resource. Our government interactions involved successfully advocating for certain gubernatorial actions and against others on topics like SBA disaster designation, banks deemed essential, directive to county clerks to process loan-related documents and voluntary accommodation of customers under these circumstances. We interacted a lot with the state treasurer on the governor’s Economic Recovery Task Force, and state legislators on helping small business and discouraging interest in a foreclosuremoratorium. CBA communicatedwithmembers of Congress repeatedly: on March 24 we hosted 20-25 bankers talking with eight of nine Colorado members of Congress (or staff for a few) and exchangedmany dozens of emails, texts and calls with Colorado members of Congress or their staff. Due to volume and urgency, ABA, CBA and state bankers associations collectively focused the attention of bank regulators on key issues below and stayed in touch, usually daily, with agency officials. We coordinated with the Colorado Division of Banking as it provided guidance to banks. SBA and Treasury exchanges were critical. When CARES was signed March 27, Treasury effectively took over and dictated SBA efforts. Last year, SBA did $28B of loans in 12 months; here it is asked to do $349B (or $600B) in a week or two. That exceeds a 300x increase. Still ramping up, as of April 7, after a few days’ operation, SBA had approved $150B in 300,000 PPP loans from 4,400 approved lenders. That will accelerate. Speaking to the public, CBA produced talking points and used them in various interviews — including interviews for the Denver Post and Denver Business Journal — stressing our message: Banks want to help and are working hard to help customers before and after the onset. The SBA process and loan terms are a bottleneck, and funds will last and banks will help you. We provided news releases to media statewide on the safety of deposits and the availability of loans. We produced fact sheets for statewide organizations and made numerous