The Small Business Administration on Wednesday said it would temporarily restrict applications for emergency small business loans to only those submitted by the country's tiniest lenders, an unprecedented move by the agency as it tries to field hundreds of thousands of incoming requests for aid, Politico reported. The SBA told banks that for the rest of the day, starting at 4 p.m. and ending at 11:59 p.m., its systems would only accept Paycheck Protection Program loan applications from lenders with less than $1 billion in assets, representing the smallest in the industry. "SBA and Treasury will evaluate whether to create a similar reserved time again in the future," the agency said. The announcement was the Trump administration's latest sudden shift in the program, which Congress created to help fight layoffs during the pandemic but which has been dogged by problems since it was launched on April 3. Lenders have seen huge demand for the small business loans, which can be forgiven if employers keep their payrolls. The new policy further inflamed tensions between the SBA and big banks, which have complained they've received little clarity on how the agency will handle their massive backlog of applications. Large lenders have said they have no idea how the agency is handling hundreds of thousands of applications that they submitted in bulk filings this week.
