Banks say they ran out of PPP funding ‘within minutes’
Banks ran out of the $350 billion allocated for the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) emergency coronavirus relief fund within minutes of the program’s application availability, according to a report from NBC news.
“We didn’t even get through the first five minutes of applications,” a JPMorgan Chase senior banking executive told the outlet.
The bank received over 60,000 applicants for the Paycheck Protection Program. A senior Bank of America executive told NBC that on the first day the bank received over 10,000 applications per hour.
The Paycheck Protection Program included in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed into law last month, provides loans for businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic if they promise to will continue to pay their employees.
The program comes on a “first come, first served” basis, meaning those businesses who didn’t submit applications early in the application period likely won’t see any federal aid.
“You get the money, you’ll get it the same day, you use this to pay your workers. Please bring your workers back to work if you’ve let them go,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a news conference the day before the program went live.
The large influx of application activity rendered the program’s coffers empty Thursday, as Democrats and Republicans scramble to come to a bipartisan agreement on upwards of $250 billion in additional funding for the program in a fourth coronavirus relief bill.
Democrats want to include more funding for hospitals and local governments in the legislation, while Republicans want “clean” funding for the small business program without additional provisions.
President Trump on Saturday called on lawmakers to come to an agreement and replenish the fund.
“Funding is now fully drained. It’s out. It’s gone,” he said during the administration’s daily coronavirus task force press briefing.
On Friday Senate Democrats called for the SBA to produce more complete data showing where the money allocated in the stimulus bill ended up.
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