VISIONBank Coronavirus Communication and Bank Operations

January 11, 2021

Second Round PPP applications are now available on our website. Please note the following information:

  • Only certain community financial institutions will be able to make first-draw PPP loans Monday and second-draw PPP loans Wednesday.
  • These community financial institutions are defined as Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institutions, FDIC-designated Minority Depository Institutions, Certified Development Corporations, and certain non-profit or governmental microloan intermediaries.
  • The PPP will open to all participating lenders shortly thereafter.  We will begin processing loans as soon as the SBA allows.
  • The SBA will take 24-48 hours to approve loan requests.

First Draw Loans – PPP Round 2

  • 500 or fewer employees
  • Did not receive a 2020 PPP loan
  • Please see information page here

Second Draw Loans – PPP Round 2

  • 300 or fewer employees
  • Exhausted first round PPP Funds
  • Have a 25%  or greater revenue reduction from any quarter of 2020 compared to the same quarter 2019, documentation to be provided
  • Please see information page here

December 23, 2020

Second Round PPP Information

Currently there is not an application available for the long-awaited COVID-19 stimulus program (PPP 2).  As we await the signing of the bill into law, we want to assure you that we are staying apprised of the developments with the program and will continue to do so through the Christmas holiday.

We encourage you to continue to watch for updates on the PPP 2 from news outlets as program details will not become available until this is finalized into law.

VISIONBank will be working hard to help facilitate any potential programs that might become available under PPP 2. Thank you for banking with VISION.

September 30, 2020

IMPORTANT ACTION ITEMS NEEDED by the SBA for your PPP Forgiveness Application

Please be advised that if you received a PPP loan, you still need to take action in order to obtain forgiveness of your loan balance.  In order to obtain loan forgiveness, the SBA requires each borrower to submit an application for forgiveness of all, or a portion of, the loan with the SBA.  Please note that the SBA has advised that it will take them between 2-3 months to process your application, and therefore, we are highly encouraging you to submit your PPP Forgiveness Application as soon as possible.  VISIONBank is actively submitting PPP Forgiveness Applications to the SBA for our clients right now.

Applications are available on our website here.

If you are having any problems completing your forgiveness application,  we recommend that you work with your accountant or tax professional to ensure that the application is completed correctly and to ensure that the appropriate supplemental information, which is required by the SBA, is included with the application.

June 04, 2020

CARES ACT- Paycheck Protection Program Participants

IMMEDIATE CALL TO ACTION

To Our Small Business Clients:

Please be advised that if you were a recipient of a Paycheck Protection Program loan you received a copy of the complete loan packet when you signed for your PPP loan.  Please refer to your PPP loan closing packet to extract the following information that is required to complete SBA Form 3508 - Loan Forgiveness Application:

1) SBA PPP Loan Number

2) Lender PPP Loan Amount

3) PPP Loan Amount

4) Employees at the time of the PPP loan application

5) PPP loan disbursement date

The Loan Forgiveness Application-SBA Form 3508 is available on our website at https://www.visionbanks.com/cares-act/ This application  must be completed  accurately and match the information that you submitted on your PPP loan application. Please understand that the completion of this application is your responsibility and we recommend that you complete it as soon as you can to ensure that your application is processed in a timely manner.  Our responsibility is to submit your forgiveness application to the SBA after confirming that it is completed in full. Please note that we will not be able to fulfil our part of this transaction until you have submitted the necessary.  If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to email covid@visionbanks.com or call 701-364-2020 and ask Kiana or Katie for assistance.

May 22, 2020

WELCOME BACK!!!  -  VISIONBank WILL BE OPENING THE LOBBIES OF ALL LOCATIONS EFFECTIVE TUESDAY, MAY 26th.

We are excited to open our doors and serve our clients in person again.  We want to assure our clients that VISIONBank continues to take a cautious approach to reopening our locations and we will be following CDC (Center for Disease Control) recommended guidelines for the health and safety of our clients, our team members and the communities we serve.  We will continue to stay apprised of all current information on the status of the coronavirus and communicate changes in our schedule, if necessary, through our social media channels of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as well as on www.visionbanks.com.  Thank you for your patience over the past weeks and we are so thankful that we have operated in a safe and effective manner to continue to serve your banking needs.  We have noticed increased volume in our digital banking platform, and we are very pleased that many of you have found this convenient, safe, and easy to use as you manage your banking accounts.  Please continue to utilize these digital services if you prefer those options to check on your accounts, transfer money, deposit checks, etc.

A few of the safety measures we have put in place at each location are as follows:

  • The entrance of every branch has a station with disposable masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. Please know that we are not requiring anyone to wear masks or gloves. However, the disposable masks and gloves are being provided for any client that would like to use while visiting VISIONBank.
  • We have indicated a spot at each teller window and customer service desk to dispose of used pens. Our employees will disinfect them after each use.
  • Hand sanitizer is available at every teller station.
  • We have marked areas on the floor, six feet apart, where everyone should stand in order to practice safe social distancing.
  • We have also incorporated disinfecting all high touch areas, continuously throughout the day, into our daily routine.
  • Please know that we are monitoring our entire team’s health by requiring staff to stay home if they are ill or have a family member in their household that is ill.

We appreciate your business and we are thankful for the leadership of Governor Burgum and his team as they managed our state through this unprecedented pandemic. We are very fortunate that the proactive measures directed by the Governor and our national leaders have minimized the impact of this dreaded virus in our region.  We are “getting it done” thanks to you.

Dan M. Carey
President / CEO
VISIONBank

April 5, 2020

 

To our small business clients,

I have attached a picture of the “CARES Task Force that Cares” from VISIONBank.  This incredible team from VISIONBank worked tirelessly from Friday until Sunday afternoon, day and night to deliver your applications to the SBA site to secure funding for our small business clients.  We care deeply about the financial well being and the health of everyone but our hearts go out to the small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and are struggling to get through this shutdown. Thank you to all that supported us with your wonderful warm wishes, thank yous and thoughtfulness with food, treats and calls as we brought this team together to work extended hours  to deliver for our clients.  WE will get through this together!  Be safe and see you soon...

Dan M Carey
President / CEO

 

April 2, 2020

 

To our Small Business Clients,

VISIONBank will be working 24/7 and through the weekend to submit your information through the SBA portal once it is open for banks to submit applications. We understand that this SBA portal will be open tomorrow April 3, 2020.  For us to successfully submit your application, we are attaching a checklist of the required financial information and support documentation that must accompany your application. In most cases we have some of your information on file but to expedite processing of your application we need you to submit this information in a complete package for this program.  This SBA program is moving at such a fast pace that there may be additional changes.  We will let you know in a subsequent communication if we need to make any adjustments. Please be advised that YOU are responsible for completing and submitting the application to VISIONBank so that we can submit it to the SBA through the portal they have established for this program.  Our goal is to submit applications as soon as the portal is open through Friday night and through the entire weekend to secure the best positioning for relief for our small business clients.  We appreciate your business and the opportunity to serve you.

Please submit your application through our secure portal at https://www.visionbanks.com/cares-act/.

Dan M Carey
President / CEO

April 1, 2020

 

To our small business clients,

We have continued to actively engage in every way to fully understand the specific parameters of the CARES Act programs and how these programs provide benefits to our small business clients. Today we participated in a conference call with Governor Doug Burgum, the Commissioner of the Department of Commerce Michelle Kommer, Congressman Kelley Armstrong, Bank of North Dakota officials and Al Haut, Director of the ND Small Business Administration.  While I would like to tell you we learned all the critical information and the specific parameters, qualifications, and terms  of the various programs under the CARES Act there are still unanswered questions and the final forms have not been provided. Once we are in receipt of the complete application, parameters, forms, and terms of each program we will communicate that information to you on our website.  There is a certain amount of misinformation about the programs and the availability of CARES Act funding. We are as anxious as each of our small business clients to know the specifics and to remove any uncertainty about the final parameters.

 

Dan M. Carey
President / CEO

March 30, 2020

COVID-19 Communication-CARES Act

To our Small Business Clients,

We were very pleased to see the CARES Act passed and signed into legislation on Friday, March 27, 2020 providing an appropriation of $350 Billion to assist small businesses that have been or will continue to be negatively affected by COVID-19. We were advocates for banks to have the “delegated authority” to work directly with our small business clients to assist them with the application and funding process. As of this writing, we are waiting for the Small Business Administration (SBA) to finalize the necessary applications and forms. As soon as we are in receipt of the required SBA documents, we will make them available on our website. I have attached three resources at the bottom of this post for you to review that provide a good overview of the available programs as we wait for the application information from the SBA. As we learn more, we will share the most up to date information with you.

VISIONBank will continue to assist small businesses through this challenging time. If for any reason, you don’t feel like you are getting answers to your questions, we want our clients to know that they can have direct access to one of our SBA loan specialists by emailing COVID@visionbanks.com. We will be checking this inbox frequently no matter what time of the day it is to accommodate our clients. As always, we stand ready to assist our small business clients and many of you know that you can reach your banker 24/7. We expect to have an incredible amount of demand and questions about the relief package so we ask for your patience as we try to respond as quickly as we possibly can. Our continued goal is to be there to assist our clients in making sure that we are exploring each program under the CARES Act and those programs under the SBA Economic Injury Disaster Program and finding the right program for your business. WE are there for our local businesses as we know how critical their role is in being the backbone of our economy. WE will get through this together...

 

Dan M Carey
President / CEO
 

Small Business Guide & Checklist
Prepared by the US Chamber of Commerce

Click to read

Small Business Owner's Guide
Small Business Guide to the CARES Act

Click to read

EIDL & PPP Loans
Attached is a table comparing EIDL and PPP Loans

Click to read

March 23, 2020

 

A message from our VISIONBank President:

WE are ALL dealing with the uncertainty of the financial impact that the coronavirus is having on each of our clients, our employees, our families, our neighbors, our communities and the country.  VISIONBank is here for you to answer any questions or concerns you have about the various programs such as the Small Business Administration Disaster Loan Program and the soon to be unveiled Economic Stimulus Program.  As we await the announcement of the details of the new Economic Stimulus Program we will be taking steps to alleviate some of the financial strain you might be experiencing.

We will be making available our Skip Payment Loan program to provide our lending clients the opportunity to skip at least 2 months of payments to provide immediate relief (please contact our team to get more details). Additionally, we are anxiously awaiting the outline of the  National Economic Stimulus Program so that we can provide our small business clients with the appropriate and necessary information to proceed with qualifying for relief under this program.  We are very proud to share that we have Senator Cramer and Senator Hoeven shaping this legislation as members of the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee respectively. They, along with Representative Kelley Armstrong, are doing a great job representing our state and the country with solid North Dakota business sense about how this economic relief legislation needs to be structured for ease of qualification and ease of distribution.  We are proud to be advocates for all small businesses and we  fully acknowledge that they are the backbone of our economy.  Small businesses and the employees that make up those small businesses need relief NOW.  I have had the opportunity to listen to our elected officials reach out to North Dakotans for their input and advice through various conference calls.  We know that there are a lot of unanswered questions. We will try to answer those questions for you. We will do our part to explore every feature of the relief programs so  that we can make sure that we are customizing the relief plan that makes the most sense for your business and your employees.

We will get through this and we are thankful for the courage, resiliency and the appreciation we have for each other as we go through this challenging time.

Dan M. Carey

President / CEO

VISIONBank

March 18, 2020

The well-being and safety of our clients, employees and the communities we serve continue to be our top priority.  As we continue to meet the ever-changing challenges of this invisible virus spreading throughout the country, we will be taking immediate steps to follow recommended social distancing measures.  VISIONBank WILL BE CLOSING THE LOBBIES OF ALL LOCATIONS EFFECTIVE THURSDAY, MARCH 19th.  Drive up facilities will continue to operate with normal hours from 7:30am to 7:00pm M-F and 9am to 1pm Saturday.  We ask that clients access digital banking services and contact the bank by phone to arrange for appointments as needed. In accordance with our emergency preparedness protocol, we have taken steps to provide full service to our clients while minimizing the number of staff at our locations for safety reasons.  We are confident that our country’s leadership will guide us through this health pandemic.

We will continue to keep you apprised of any updates through our website and social media.  Please feel free to contact us at 701-364-2020, toll-free at 877-857-2020, or by email at customerservice@visionbanks.com.

Dan M. Carey
President/CEO