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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today announced that its Office of Innovation will host three listening sessions on April 16, 20, and 21, to discuss issues and potential solutions relating to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) as established by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Listening sessions are used to inform the OCC and participants about emerging topics, issues, or concerns of stakeholders such as banks and nonbanks, including financial technology (fintech) companies.

These sessions will focus on three aspects of the PPP: payroll verification, fraud identification, and backend processes.

• Payroll verification – April 16, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (eastern). The OCC seeks to facilitate discussion around methods to increase the speed and efficiency of payroll verification for PPP loans during loan application and monitoring processes.
• Fraud identification – April 20, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (eastern). The OCC seeks to facilitate discussion around solutions that will enable entities to more effectively and efficiently identify fraudulent uses of the PPP, including loan stacking (i.e., receiving PPP loans from more than one lender).
• Backend processes – April 21, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (eastern). The OCC seeks to facilitate discussion around solutions addressing potential challenges entities may face monitoring PPP loans and during the loan forgiveness process.

Potential solutions may include new products or services (including those developed by fintech companies), partnerships between a bank and fintech company, or other approaches related to responsible innovation in the federal banking system.

Each listening session will last approximately two hours. Parties interested in providing their views should contact OCC’s Office of Innovation at innovation@occ.treas.gov and indicate which call they are interested in participating.

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