SAN FRANCISCO, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Major U.S. multinational bank Wells Fargo & Company has announced it would donate some 400 million U.S. dollars to help small businesses impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to a statement released on Friday.

"By donating approximately 400 million U.S. dollars in processing fees to assist small businesses in need, Wells Fargo's Open for Business Fund creates opportunities for near-term access to capital and addresses the road ahead to meaningful economic recovery, especially for Black and African American entrepreneurs and other minority-owned businesses," said Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf.

Through Wells Fargo's Open for Business Fund, the company will engage nonprofit organizations to provide capital, technical support, and long-term resiliency programs to small businesses with an emphasis on those that are minority-owned businesses, said the statement released by the company.

According to data from Wells Fargo's June Gallup/Small Business Index, more than half of small business owners surveyed expect either stagnant or decreasing revenues in the coming 12 months.

The Open for Business Fund's initial grants will allocate 28 million dollars to Community Development Financial Institutions, also known as nonprofit community lenders, aimed at empowering Black and African American-owned small businesses, the statement said.

"Black businesses have faced the largest shutdown of any diverse group in the country," said Ron Busby, Sr., CEO of U.S. Black Chambers, Inc.

"We lost 41 percent, or 450,000 Black-owned small businesses, in this pandemic so far and all of those businesses provided jobs so we need to accelerate an economic agenda that helps them recover," said Busby.

In specifically oversampling African American, Hispanic, Asian, and women business owners, June's survey also observed that 52 percent of these owners felt the U.S. economy was in a recession or depression, while 26 percent said they did not feel very prepared or at all prepared for the economic downturn from the pandemic, the company said in the statement. Enditem

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