Policy should have sent the money directly to companies from the SBA/IRS, customers then would choose the banks to service that guaranteed government grant/loan essentially. Much like the FAFSA system for student loans, you get your amount, then a servicer handles the actual loan but there is literally no risk to them as it is guaranteed.

Why we sent guaranteed money to be held up in banks and did information and credit checks, on already known information from the IRS, well we know why, to pilfer it.

Had they ran it a better way, using the actual market, directly to businesses/individuals, that is lots of money out there for banks to go get and the market knows it is out there as well. Markets like knowing hundreds of billions and trillions are out there to go get. Make them earn the fees if they must.

Instead, it was a direct transfer from the Fed and treasury to QE that was pilfered by the usual suspects: hedge funds, market makers, foreign funds, oligarchs, wealth/value extraction ops, naked short selling, short and distort and more. The SBA money was pilfered by banks and large companies. The 'stimulus' for the economy, routed around the entire actual economy, never reaching individuals or true small business.