The Small Business Administration’s third round of Paycheck Protection Program coronavirus relief lending has steadily grown to top 400,000 loans worth about $35 billion in its first two weeks as a persistent economic crisis means small businesses are still seeking help, the Washington Post reported. The government’s new phased approach to distributing the $284 billion in recently allocated PPP funds means it’s unlikely that the money will run out as it did in April. This time, the SBA gave a head start to smaller banks and those likely to serve low-income and minority communities. And it added a new set of automated compliance checks to prevent fraud and abuse of public funds, something that has created new safeguards but also led more applications to be rejected. Acting SBA administrator Tami Perriello said the agency wants to move faster while also carrying out necessary checks. When implementing the third round of funding, Congress put new limits on who could receive PPP loans, even as it approved hundreds of billions of dollars of new funding for the program. The first week of loan funding starting Jan. 11 was open only to “Community Financial Institutions,” which are typically better at lending to businesses in low-income areas. It was not until Jan. 19 that larger banks were allowed to participate. The rollout has not been without hiccups. In a letter Monday, the American Bankers Association pointed out several apparent glitches that the organization said “are preventing the program from fully supporting small businesses in need.”
