American banking has a long history of systematically excluding borrowers in poorer or Black and Brown communities from access to credit, or including them on predatory terms. And with the US government often using the banking system to implement public policy, as it did with its Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic, these structural biases become a feature of state programs. Predictably, the PPP made its first $360 billion in loans almost exclusively to larger and still profitable businesses in more affluent White communities, denying funds to business owners in the hardest hit Black and Brown areas. Yet in a striking turn, PPP lending institutions pivoted in later rounds to lend heavily in poorer and minority communities.  In this talk, I present findings from a project on what drove that pivot to see where possibilities might exist within the American banking system for more inclusive lending.