The Company
Sunrise Banks is a Minnesota-based community bank and certified B Corporation serving the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area. The organization focuses on financial inclusion and community impact, with a mission centered on improving clients’ lives through innovative banking products and services.
When the SBA introduced the Paycheck Protection Program in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Sunrise Banks moved quickly to support both existing customers and new businesses in its community. To meet the surge in demand, the team implemented Anvil to power a faster, more secure PPP loan application process.
Founded: 1986
Certified B Corporation
PPP loans processed with Anvil: $127M
Submitted applications accepted: about 87%
The Problem
Manual loan processing was too slow for the volume and urgency of PPP demand.
At the start of the program, Sunrise Banks relied on PDF applications and email-based follow-up. That process created delays, introduced security concerns, and led to frequent errors because applicants could submit incomplete or invalid information without real-time validation.
Because PPP funding was first come, first served, speed was critical. Team members across business lines shifted their time to support the effort, but the bank was still only able to process about 84 loan applications per day.
As a mission-driven bank committed to serving more local businesses, Sunrise needed a process that was quick, easy, secure, and flexible enough to keep up with changing program requirements. After evaluating options, the team selected Anvil.
“The Anvil team is a great partner bar none. Highest caliber engineering talent and customer service we’ve ever experienced. They make me look like a hero to my business partners.”
The Solution
Anvil worked with Sunrise Banks to design and launch an online PPP loan application workflow in less than five days.
The new process was built using Anvil Workflows to create an intuitive application experience that was easier for applicants to complete and easier for internal teams to manage. Real-time validation checks improved data quality at the point of submission and reduced the number of incomplete or incorrect applications entering the pipeline.
Each application was protected with PIN-based access, and a secure file upload flow was included for sensitive supporting documents. Anvil Etch E-sign was used to collect e-signatures at the end of the workflow, and Anvil’s Document API made it easy for Sunrise to move application data into its core banking system.
The result was a more secure, more scalable process that reduced manual work and gave the team a much stronger operational foundation.
The Result
With Anvil, Sunrise Banks increased PPP loan processing capacity by about 5x, going from roughly 85 applications per day to about 500.
That increase allowed the bank to help far more businesses in its community, including many beyond its existing customer base. The improved workflow also created a better applicant experience, with customers describing the process as quick, straightforward, and more communicative than what they experienced with larger banks.
Sunrise Banks later expanded its use of Anvil to support the PPP loan forgiveness process and identified additional loan workflows as future opportunities.