Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
The Small Business Administration, which resumed accepting applications from small businesses for Paycheck Protection Program loans on Monday, says it is seeing double the volume as it did in the opening hours of the PPP's initial rollout.
By the numbers: The SBA says it had processed more than 100,000 loans from over 4,000 lenders as of 3:30pm ET.
Between the lines: The increased activity makes sense, given that the initial PPP ran out of money over a week ago and banks had begun stockpiling applications.
- It also has resulted in slowed response time and tech crashes, which the SBA acknowledged in a statement.
- Some new guardrails are intended to better ensure that smaller lenders don't get shut out, but that also could mean longer wait times. On the other hand, lenders can now submit applications in large batches, which should boost the early numbers.
The original PPP doled out $349 billion to 1.66 million small businesses, working out to an average loan size of $206,000. Were that average to hold, it would mean that more than $20 billion of the new $322 billion is already spoken for.
Note: Axios qualified for a loan under this program. More details here.