EY automates PPP loan forgiveness for US banks

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the US government launched the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to aid small businesses with loans and possible forgiveness. As eligibility and forgiveness criteria changed frequently, banks and their partners needed rapid, low-cost solutions for massive loan processing. Ernst & Young (EY), a global professional services firm, identified this as an opportunity and developed an automated platform utilizing the Microsoft Power Platform and various Azure services. The platform enables end-to-end handling of PPP loan forgiveness, including document intake, validation, cross-checking, and secure submission to the US Small Business Administration (SBA). The solution was rapidly prototyped, allowing EY to demonstrate a functional product to potential clients and win contracts with multiple regional banks. It features modular architecture for agile updates, supports bank and borrower branding, and integrates with third-party tools for document verification and communication. Security is tightly enforced through encryption and Microsoft identity solutions, with additional compatibility for external services such as MOVEit, DocuSign, SendGrid, and ServiceNow. Real-time dashboards powered by Power BI allow banks to monitor operations and key metrics. Within months, the platform helped regional banks process over 50,000 loans totaling more than $10 billion, dramatically cutting processing time from months to just 12 weeks. EY’s PPP loan forgiveness solution has since inspired additional product development and proved the effectiveness of low-code, cloud-based approaches to complex, large-scale financial operations.