When the coronavirus pandemic stalled much of the nation’s economic activity, employees at TruFund Financial Services worked feverishly to get emergency Paycheck Protection Program loans to cash-strapped small businesses in New York, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana.
But the community development financial institution did not have the technology platform to support PPP lending. So each application had to be handled manually, from start to finish.
“The staff was working a herculean effort to get those small-business loans processed,” TruFund President and CEO James Bason said. “We had loan officers, underwriters, credit people, people from other markets, even some non loan officers helping us close the loans. We got it done, but the realization was that we needed to embrace technology in order to do this.”