The Role of the Payments Technology Industry in Distributing Stimulus Funds

The digital transactions industry has been essential in keeping the economy moving during the pandemic by providing safe and secure payment options for Americans to receive, hold, and spend money. Given the important role ETA members play in serving consumers and merchants, the digital transactions industry was designated by the federal and many state governments as “critical infrastructure,” and thus had a special responsibility to maintain its role during the pandemic, including through the following important initiatives:

• The digital transactions industry helped distribute Economic Impact Payment (EIP) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans underwritten by ETA members for small businesses.
  • In the previous round of stimulus, the Treasury Department used prepaid cards to deliver $9 billion to 57 million American.
  • As of March 2021, the industry has used modern lending tools to help the Small Business Administration process and disburse nearly $137 billion in PPP loans to more than 2 million small businesses.

• It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of EIP stimulus dollars were sent directly to peer-to-peer (P2P) accounts such as PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App.

• The industry helped distribute billions of dollars of additional federal and state unemployment benefits.

• ETA members including MetaBank, Fiserv, Mastercard, and Visa helped provide the solutions to make all of this happen.

• In addition to EIP and PPP, ETA members also help federal and state governments quickly and securely deliver benefits such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Social Security, Veterans Affairs (VA), payroll, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), income tax refunds, and many other government assistance programs.