Profiles · Companies and entities
- Type
- Company or group
- Role
- Lobby or trade group
- Programs
- PPP
- Updated
The profile
Technology-company policy coalition (Amazon, Apple, Google, Intuit, PayPal, Square and Stripe in 2020) that wrote to congressional leaders on March 19, 2020 urging that non-bank lenders be allowed to disburse emergency small-business loans.
Identity & role
Financial Innovation Now is a Washington policy coalition of technology companies. Its comment letter to the FDIC of May 18, 2020 lists the members as Amazon, Apple, Google, Intuit, PayPal, Square and Stripe. Executive director Brian Peters signed that letter and the March 2020 letter to Congress.
The March 19, 2020 letter to Congress
On March 19, 2020, before the CARES Act passed, FIN wrote to Speaker Pelosi and Leaders McConnell, McCarthy and Schumer urging Congress to let non-bank lenders disburse emergency small-business loans, asserting its members "could rapidly disburse approximately $100 billion" to small businesses (our copy of the letter is in the archive directory linked below). Square, PayPal and Intuit were subsequently approved as non-bank PPP lenders.
Franklin Square Group, the Washington firm associated with Brian Peters, and a lobbyist of the same name are said to appear on Postmates' 2020 federal lobbying filings (Senate LDA records cited in the Postmates profile); FIN's own organizational form and tax status are not documented in the sources we have.
What the members did in PPP
The SBA's PPP loan-level file credits Square Capital, LLC with 72,564 loans for $681.8 million and Intuit Financing Inc. with 18,558 loans for $631.9 million. PayPal's PPP loans were made by WebBank, which the file credits with 119,182 loans for $3.18 billion; PayPal's own counts come close to WebBank's (see the PayPal profile). The file lists no lender run by Amazon, Apple, Google or Stripe. Against the letter's estimate that members "could rapidly disburse approximately $100 billion," the three lending channels together account for about $4.5 billion.
Where it stands now
On September 27, 2026 the address financialinnovationnow.org did not serve FIN's pages; the server presented a security certificate for unrelated domains. The Internet Archive's most recent copy of FIN's home page is dated November 8, 2022. The newest statement on that copy is dated October 21, 2021, a response to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau orders sent to FIN member companies.
Sources
- FIN letter, March 19, 2020: FIN Calls on Congress to Help Small Businesses ASAP (original: financialinnovationnow.org · stored capture) (link now dead; copy taken from the Internet Archive, 4 October 2022)
- Archive: financial innovation now
- Financial Innovation Now, comment letter to the FDIC on RIN 3064-AE94 (brokered deposits), May 18, 2020, signed by Brian Peters
- Financial Innovation Now home page, Internet Archive copy of November 8, 2022