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Reese Howell Jr.

Executive

PPP
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
PPP
Updated

The profile

Founder, chairman and CEO of Celtic Bank, a Utah industrial bank and SBA lender that originated 167,201 PPP loans worth about $4.49 billion per SBA loan-level data (lender_fees.csv), including through fintech partners. Celtic received the House Select Subcommittee's May 2021 document request and was among the lenders SBA said in December 2022 it was investigating.

Identity and role

Reese S. Howell Jr. is the founder, chairman and CEO of Celtic Bank, a Utah-chartered industrial bank in Salt Lake City, and president of its parent, Celtic Investment, Inc. Celtic is an SBA 7(a) lender and a sponsor bank for fintechs: the Clyburn letter names its Kabbage partnerships; Square ran its PPP loans through Celtic (see the Jacqueline Reses profile).

Biography / career arc

Howell earned a bachelor's in business administration and an MBA from the University of Utah, and sits on the David Eccles School of Business national advisory board. He started Salt Lake Mortgage Corporation, which merged with Celtic Investment, Inc., a Chicago-based, NASDAQ-listed company, and in 2001 obtained a Utah industrial loan corporation charter and became Celtic Bank (company page; the 1993 and 1997 dates are not in the capture). He is active in industrial-bank policy as a board and executive-committee member of the National Association of Industrial Bankers.

The company and its PPP/EIDL role

Celtic Bank is a privately held Utah industrial bank (ILC), FDIC-insured (Cert. 57056 per FDIC BankFind), with about $4.3 billion in assets in 2025 (Banking Dive). It issues loans for fintech partners including Kabbage (Clyburn letter); BlueVine and OnDeck are cross-referenced profiles; the Stripe Capital and 'top SBA lender for more than a decade' lines are not in any copy we have.

Per SBA loan-level data, it originated 167,201 PPP loans worth $4.49 billion and collected about $0.23 billion in lender processing fees; an interim 2021 release, headlined that the bank "punches above its weight", put its PPP funding at over $2.5 billion.

Banking Dive's report on the House subcommittee findings says Celtic pressed its fintech partner BlueVine on fraud controls and that BlueVine's reporting delays caused Celtic to file suspicious-activity reports late. These are subcommittee findings, not court findings.

Their own relief

No PPP or EIDL loan to Howell personally, or to Celtic Bank as a borrower, is established in the public record.

Congress (2021). On May 27, 2021, House Select Subcommittee Chairman James Clyburn sent a document-and-information demand to "Mr. Reese Howell, Jr., Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Celtic Bank," parallel to letters sent to Cross River, Kabbage, and BlueVine. It cited DOJ cases in which fraudsters had pulled money through Celtic. It was an investigative request, not a charge, and produced none against Celtic or Howell.

The SBA (December 2022). Celtic was among the high-volume lenders the SBA said it would investigate after the subcommittee's report (alongside Cross River, Customers, and the nonbank lenders). Only Womply and Blueacorn were suspended; Celtic was investigated, not suspended. No public enforcement action against Celtic resulted.

DOJ borrower-fraud cases. The Clyburn letter itself cites three prosecutions in which Celtic was the lender that disbursed funds to fraudsters who lied on their applications: United States v. Samuel Morgan Yates, United States v. Keith Nicoletta, and United States v. Terrence Deshun Williams. In each, the borrower is the defendant and Celtic is the conduit defrauded, not a culpable party.

We found no FDIC, Utah DFI, or CFPB enforcement action against Celtic. The FDIC pages that surface under Celtic's name and Howell's (RINs 3064-ZA48, 3064-AF99, and the parent-company rule dockets) are public comment letters Celtic submitted on FDIC rulemakings about industrial banks and brokered deposits. The September 19, 2025 comment defending the ILC charter framework is signed "Reese S Howell, Jr., Chairman & CEO." Celtic generates consumer complaints tied to its fintech consumer-credit partnerships, but complaints are not findings.

Civil litigation filed August 2025 — allegations, not findings. In August 2025, nine investor-plaintiffs sued Celtic Bank, Celtic Investment and a former SBA-lending executive, alleging the bank "fueled" a roughly $200–275 million Ponzi scheme through SBA 7(a) loans (Banking Dive, Aug. 28, 2025), including a civil RICO count. These are unproven allegations in a civil complaint; the scheme's founder has been separately charged by the SEC (we do not have a copy of the release). Howell is not individually named. The separate MCM High Income Funding suit previously mentioned here is not in any source we have.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Howell remains chairman and CEO of Celtic Bank, confirmed by his September 2025 FDIC comment letter. The bank announced a partnership with the lending-software firm Casca for its SBA 7(a) program (PR Newswire); the '$500 million in SBA lending approved' figure is not in any copy we have.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources

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