U.S. processes over $500 billion in small business loans to stem coronavirus fallout

(Reuters) – The U.S. Small Business Administration has processed over 3.8 million loans for more than half a trillion dollars since the launch of the Paycheck Protection Program on April 3 to deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a joint statement by the SBA and the Treasury Department.

SBA has processed about 2.2 million loans, whose value is over $175 billion, since the start of the second round of the PPP loan processing on April 27, the statement added.

The second round of the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program was launched on Monday, allowing lenders to issue forgivable, government-guaranteed loans to small businesses shuttered by the outbreak.

The average loan size in the second round of the PPP loan processing has been $79,000, according to the statement released on Sunday.

The U.S. government’s $660 billion small business rescue program has stumbled on missing paperwork, technology failure, and the misdirection of funds to big corporations. It also faces the hurdle of forgiving those hastily arranged loans.