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Jay Sidhu

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The profile

Founder and executive chairman of Customers Bancorp, which he ran as CEO through the PPP. Its bank made 249,661 PPP loans worth $6.33 billion, booked "close to $350 million" in deferred SBA fees, and paid him a $1.25 million PPP cash award. SBA named Customers among eight lenders it would investigate; no PPP finding followed.

In the archive

Identity and role

Jay S. Sidhu is the founder and, since January 1, 2026, executive chairman of Customers Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: CUBI), the holding company for Customers Bank in West Reading, Pennsylvania. He was its chairman and CEO from 2009 until the start of 2026, when he handed the chief-executive title to his son, Sam Sidhu. Before Customers he spent seventeen years running Sovereign Bancorp.

Career

Sidhu was born in 1951 near Bamala, in Punjab, India. He emigrated to the United States in 1971, earned an MBA from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania and completed Harvard Business School's executive leadership course. Wilkes later named its business school after him, and he has chaired its board of trustees.

From 1989 to 2006 he was chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bancorp and Sovereign Bank. By the company's account he grew it from a roughly $12 million IPO into an institution of about $90 billion in assets, at its peak the 17th-largest bank in the United States. He left in 2006 (American Banker). In 2009 he raised about $13.6 million for a controlling stake in New Century Bank, a five-branch bank in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, became its CEO within a month and renamed it Customers. At the 2026 handoff the company described its growth "from a distressed bank with approximately $200 million in assets to over $22 billion." BankMobile, the digital bank he launched with his daughter Luvleen Sidhu, was spun off in January 2021 as BM Technologies through a merger with Megalith Financial Acquisition Corp., the blank-check company Sam Sidhu founded (GlobeNewswire).

Pandemic-relief role

Customers built a PPP business out of other people's customers. Its January 12, 2021 release says fintechs had marketing and technology but lacked underwriting capacity and capital, so "Customers Bank Vice Chair Sam Sidhu engineered a hybrid bank-fintech partnership." Kabbage was the partner named in the record: the House Select Subcommittee's December 2022 report lists Customers as one of Kabbage's two round-one banks. Kabbage's bankruptcy disclosure statement records a Customers channel of about $2.6 billion with about $65 million in associated fees. For 2021 Customers sold the platform to other lenders as a white-label product. "The customer will not know it isn't their bank until late in the process," Sam Sidhu said in the release.

SBA's loan data credit Customers Bank with 249,661 PPP loans worth $6.33 billion as originating lender. The company's own counts run higher: its July 28, 2021 release says Customers "made more than 320,000 PPP loans with an aggregate value of $9.6 billion." The 2022 proxy gave about 358,000 worth $10.3 billion funded "directly or indirectly": "more PPP loans than Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC." The Fed funded much of the book; Customers' PPP Liquidity Facility balance peaked at $4.81 billion. Customers also became servicer for other lenders' PPP loans, including 21,336 made by WebBank and 32,926 made by Ready Capital's lending unit.

The fees came in above plan. In July 2020 Customers told investors PPP would "add about $100 million in origination revenues." The 2022 proxy reported "close to $350 million of deferred origination fees from the SBA," which it called "close to 8 times higher" than first expected. Its 10-Ks report PPP interest income, including net fees, of $424.1 million for 2020 through 2022. In February 2021 the compensation committee gave five executives one-time PPP awards worth $5.2 million, "approximately 1.5% of the total deferred fees earned from the PPP loans." Jay Sidhu took $1,250,000 in cash, and Sam Sidhu, whom the 2021 10-K credits with the fintech partnerships, received 250,000 stock options valued at $3,116,421.

In the January 2021 release Jay Sidhu cast the effort as "a patriotic obligation." In paying him the maximum 2020 bonus, $883,200, or 120 percent of his $736,000 salary, the compensation committee said it "also considered the significant achievement in the SBA's PPP program during 2020." None of the named executives took a pay cut in 2020.

Their own relief

We found no PPP or EIDL loan to Jay Sidhu personally, or to Customers Bancorp as a borrower.

Jay Sidhu has not been charged with a crime, and we found no SEC action or regulatory bar against him.

PPP oversight. After the House Select Subcommittee's fintech report, SBA named Customers on December 9, 2022 among eight PPP partner lenders it would investigate. We found no charge, False Claims Act settlement or Inspector General finding about Customers' PPP lending. Customers' 10-K filed in February 2022 lists among its risk factors that its fast PPP lending "may present potential fraud risk."

The 2024 written agreement. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia entered a written agreement with Customers Bancorp and Customers Bank, dated August 5, 2024 and announced August 8. It followed examinations that "identified significant deficiencies" in risk management and in compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money-laundering rules and OFAC regulations. The findings concern the bank's digital-asset customers and its instant-payments platform, not PPP. The Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities issued a consent order the same day. Customers' 10-K for 2025, filed February 27, 2026, does not report either as lifted.

The securities suit. Chang v. Customers Bancorp, E.D. Pa. No. 2:24-cv-06416, named Customers Bancorp, Jay Sidhu and former CFO Carla Leibold, and alleged they failed to disclose the weak controls. The court denied the only movant appointment as lead plaintiff on June 24, 2025, and the case was voluntarily dismissed on October 28, 2025, without a ruling on the merits.

Since 2025

Sidhu became executive chairman of Customers Bancorp on January 1, 2026; the succession was announced in July 2025, when he was 73.

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