M&T Bank approaches nearly 2,000 PPP loans in Syracuse-Utica region

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — M&T Bank Corp., the largest bank in the 16-county Central New York region by deposits, says it has so far made 1,995 government-backed loans, totaling $416 million, in the Syracuse/Utica area under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

The Buffalo–based regional bank says 335 of those loans, totaling $45 million, have come in the second round of the emergency forgivable-loan program, as of May 11. It approved 1,660 loans for $371 million in round one. The firms receiving the loans employ more than 41,000 people.

M&T Bank has to date approved 989 PPP loans, totaling $190 million, in the Binghamton/Ithaca area. In the first round of the program, it made 837 loans for $189 million, while approving 152 loans totaling $1 million in round two. The companies receiving the loans employ nearly 23,000 people.

M&T Bank, as of April 11, had approved about $7 billion in PPP loans for 32,273 companies, employing more than 718,000 people, across its eight-state footprint plus the District of Columbia. “Our PPP loan portal is now open for a limited time and, in the past 48 hours we’ve accepted an additional 1,700 loans seeking $93 million in PPP funding,” Julia Berchou, a VP with the bank, told CNYBJ Wednesday.

“Approximately 63 percent of our PPP loans were to businesses employing 10 or fewer people, 92 percent were to businesses employing fewer than 50 employees, and 97 percent were to companies with 100 or fewer employees,” she added.

The PPP loans are meant to help small businesses and nonprofits stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, by funding eight weeks of payroll and certain overhead costs to keep workers in their jobs.

The U.S. Small Business Administration and Treasury Department have allocated more loans to small community banks in the second round of PPP and have emphasized trying to help smaller companies. So the average loan size has been lower.

M&T Bank employs nearly 500 people in its Central New York region, which includes Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego, Madison, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, and Seneca Counties. It holds the No. 1 share of deposits in the Syracuse metro area and the broader 16-county Central New York region that CNYBJ covers.