Wintrust Financial Corporation Supports Nearly 7,000 Applications in Latest Round of the Paycheck Protection Program

Wins Seven Greenwich Excellence Awards for Middle Market and Small Business Banking

ROSEMONT, Ill., March 03, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wintrust Financial Corporation (“Wintrust” or “the Company”) (Nasdaq: WTFC) announced today that it has received 6,973 applications for $1.27 billion in loans since it opened its platform on January 11 to accept client submissions for the latest round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) from the U.S. Treasury Department and Small Business Administration (SBA). Since the SBA opened its portal for application submissions on January 19, Wintrust has received funding authorization from the SBA for approximately 96 percent of its clients.

Historically, Wintrust ranks as one of the largest SBA lenders in the communities served by its 15 community banks. For this latest round of the PPP program, to date, Wintrust has received more than $1.11 billion in loan requests from 6,030 small businesses in Illinois. It has received $75.5 million in loan requests from 639 small businesses in Wisconsin. An additional $95.8 million in loan requests have been received from 304 small business borrowers with operations in other states around the country. The median loan size is currently approximately $57,000 demonstrating the relief provided by Wintrust community banks to very small businesses. To date, Wintrust has funded $4.59 billion in PPP loans since the beginning of the program in March 2020.

Edward J. Wehmer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “On December 27, the Consolidated Appropriations Act became law mandating a third round of funding for the PPP program as well as substantive changes to the PPP program. Again, our team worked tirelessly to update our systems and with our communities to make sure all eligible businesses could receive the new funds as quickly as possible. We opened our portal for applications on January 11 – a week ahead of the SBA’s portal opening – so we could get our clients’ applications submitted in a timely fashion when the SBA’s portal first opened on January 19. At the same time, we were able to employ select branches as PPP Resource Centers for technology access and program expertise in the communities with the greatest need.”

Wintrust was recently honored to receive seven awards from Greenwich Associates for excellence in banking – six in the middle market category and one in the small business category. Greenwich recognized Wintrust in the following middle market categories, both within the Midwest region and nationally:

• Cash management (overall satisfaction).
• Likelihood to recommend.
• Overall satisfaction.
  

For more information on the Greenwich awards, please click here.

Wehmer continued, “I want to extend my full appreciation to the entire Wintrust team for their momentous efforts. We are honored to be recognized by Greenwich for our efforts to serve our clients and communities. These awards emphasize our resolute commitment to our clients. Our PPP efforts are a prime example of the challenges the team overcame and accomplishments they achieved to serve our clients and communities.”

At this point, Wintrust is no longer accepting new PPP applications through its online portal. However, Wintrust encourages those who are eligible for this round of PPP, but have waited to apply, to work directly with their local Wintrust banker or to call their local branch to be connected to a banker. Smaller organizations can also seek technical assistance with their PPP applications at one of Wintrust’s PPP Resource Centers (click here for bank locations and times). More information on PPP can be found here.

Wehmer concluded, “Difficult times remain for many in our communities. Like the two previous rounds of PPP funding, Wintrust has made the businesses and communities hit the hardest by this pandemic, including low-to-moderate income business and minority communities, a focal point for our support. We join everyone in hoping that we are seeing the light at the end of this tunnel. In the meantime, we will continue to work to provide those who are eligible with increased peace of mind. We will focus on those businesses and communities that need our help the most.”

Additional and current information on the commercial banking services that Wintrust and its affiliate charter banks offer can be found here.

About Wintrust
Wintrust is a financial holding company with assets of over $45 billion whose common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol WTFC. Built on the "HAVE IT ALL" model, Wintrust offers sophisticated technology and resources of a large bank while focusing on providing service-based community banking to each and every customer. Wintrust operates fifteen community bank subsidiaries, with over 180 banking locations located in the greater Chicago and southern Wisconsin market areas. Additionally, Wintrust operates various non-bank business units including business units which provide commercial and life insurance premium financing in the United States, a premium finance company operating in Canada, a company providing short-term accounts receivable financing and value-added out-sourced administrative services to the temporary staffing services industry, a business unit engaging primarily in the origination and purchase of residential mortgages for sale into the secondary market throughout the United States, and companies providing wealth management services and qualified intermediary services for tax-deferred exchanges.

Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.  Investors are cautioned that such statements are predictions and actual events or results may differ materially. Wintrust's expected financial results or other plans are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" and the forward-looking statement disclosure contained in Wintrust's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and in any of the Company’s subsequent SEC filings. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made and Wintrust undertakes no duty to update the information.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Edward J. Wehmer, Founder & Chief Executive Officer
David A. Dykstra, Vice Chairman & Chief Operating Officer
(847) 939-9000
Web site address: www.wintrust.com