JPMorgan Sent Over 225,000 Small-Business Applications This Week

(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. has submitted more than 225,000 applications for the second round of the Small Business Administration's relief program.

The largest U.S. lender continues to process and submit applications, and plans to email clients as it receives responses from the SBA, Jennifer Roberts, chief of the consumer unit's business-banking division, said in a note to clients Wednesday.

“We don't know timing yet, but we'll email you as soon as the SBA notifies us of their decision on your loan,” Roberts wrote.

The SBA's Paycheck Protection Program, aimed at helping the nation's smallest businesses weather the coronavirus pandemic, relaunched Monday with $320 billion of funds after an initial round of $349 billion was exhausted in just 13 days earlier this month.

JPMorgan's submissions total about $17.8 billion in requested funding for the second round, with an average loan size of $81,000, according to company spokeswoman Trish Wexler. In the first round, JPMorgan secured about $14 billion in funding, with an average loan size of more than $500,000.

The largest U.S. lenders had hundreds of thousands of applications ready to go when the program restarted. Bank of America Corp. sent 184,000 applications from Sunday to early Monday, while Wells Fargo & Co. sent more than 100,000 applications Monday. The Trump administration said Tuesday that it had approved more than $52 billion in loan requests, even as lenders were beset by glitches that slowed down the SBA's platform.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.