PPP lender processing fees by lender type, modeled

Measured on the file on 2026-10-16; the checksum above is the file these numbers describe.

What it is

One row for each of six lender types, grouped from the 4,689 originating lenders in the per-lender fee table. The types are community bank (3,512 lenders), big bank (51), fintech (31), CDFI (20), credit union (946) and other (129, including the one row with a blank lender name). Each row sums the type's disbursed loans, current approved dollars and modeled processing fees, and splits the fees by draw and by four loan-size bands. Fee per loan divides fees by loans.

Community banks earned the most, $17.06 billion, 44.6% of the total; the big banks $10.75 billion, 28.1%; the fintech type $6.93 billion, 18.1%; CDFIs $2.27 billion, 5.9%; credit unions $1.03 billion, 2.7%; other lenders $200.79 million, 0.5%. The fee-per-loan order is close to the reverse: community bank $4,005, big bank $3,918, other $2,824, credit union $2,588, CDFI $2,396, fintech $2,272. CDFIs made 98.7% of their loans at $50,000 or less and took 95.7% of their fees from that band. The same two shares for the other types: fintech type 93.5% and 79.6%; big banks 67.9% and 25.3%; community banks 69.3% and 28.5%; credit unions 81.7% and 46.7%; other lenders 82.6% and 51.6%.

The type is a channel label, not a charter. The fintech list holds 14 lenders whose names carry a bank charter word, Cross River Bank, Customers Bank, Celtic Bank Corporation and WebBank among them. They account for 1,139,827 loans and $2.52 billion of the type's $6.93 billion, at $2,211 a loan. The 17 fintech lenders without one account for 1,909,747 loans and $4.41 billion, at $2,308 a loan. The companion file flags the charter word on every lender, so the table can be regrouped by charter.

How it was built

Each lender's loans, dollars and fees come from the per-lender fee table, which prices every disbursed loan in SBA's September 30, 2024 release on its current approved amount under the schedule for its draw and approval date. The 2020 CARES Act schedule paid 5% up to $350,000, 3% above that and below $2 million and 1% at $2 million and above. The 2021 Economic Aid Act schedule paid the lesser of $2,500 or 50% on loans of $50,000 or less, then the same 5% and 3%. The 4,689 rows grouped here match that table to the cent on all 14 shared columns.

The lender type is a keyword rule applied to the lender's name as the SBA file prints it, 104 keywords in all. They break down as 39 naming fintech lenders and the chartered banks the rule groups with them and 36 naming the largest banks. The rest: 19 naming CDFIs and mission lenders, 5 naming Farm Credit lenders as community banks and 5 for credit unions. A name none of them matches is a community bank if it contains bank, banc, trust, savings or national association, and other if not. Re-applying the rule to every name reproduces the type on all 4,689 rows. The companion file's charter flag tests the name for Bank, National Association or SSB.

Specific to this file, measured on it: keys, joins, encodings, units, and the values that will trip a naive count.