Just as it was set to expire June 30, the U.S. Senate passed an extension to the Paycheck Protection Program.
The program, with $130 billion remaining, would be extended until Aug. 8. The House and President Donald Trump still need to approve the extension.
The U.S. Small Business Administration said as of June 27, a total of 4,798,187 businesses have received loans through the program. Around $518,855,402,128 has been loaned.
The PPP provides loans of up to $10 million to companies with fewer than 500 employees to help keep employees on the payroll and to cover mortgage, rent and utilities. At least 60% of the funds must be used for payroll expenses.
In the weeks leading up to the June 30 deadline, area lenders said they were seeing a slowdown in PPP applications.
BBVA North Florida Market CEO Nelson Bradshaw said June 10 applications “dramatically slowed down,” but expected a few more to trickle in before June 30.
Nationally, the bank funded 22,000 applications for $3.3 billion.
“I think some businesses that didn’t apply initially, that were concerned about the eight weeks just being too quick, they weren’t ready to bring folks back yet, that they might do that now,” Bradshaw said June 10.