KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After $349 billion in federal aid for small businesses was wiped out in just 10 days, Congress and the President have structured a new stimulus plan that includes an additional $310 billion for small businesses that didn't make the cut the first time.
Those online application portals on the Small Business Administration's website opened on Monday, April 27, and within hours banks across the country experienced issues.
What banks and their applicants experienced Monday was not a matter of the SBA website crashing – but rather becoming inundated.
The site was given a new mechanism to help manage traffic and prevent it from crashing, like it did several weeks ago. The effects of that strategy is what many banks across the U.S. saw Monday morning when lenders ran into issues filing.
"When the funding ran out for the original program, there were applications in almost every lender’s location that did not get submitted because there was a certain point when their applications were stopped,” Tom Salisbury, Small Business Region 7 administrator, said.
Those applications waited on bankers’ desks and when 9:30 a.m. Monday hit, old applications from round one hit the system at the same time that new ones were being filed across the country.
"There are people accessing it now that didn't do it the first time,” Salisbury said, “and they now know the value of it. So they're going to be attempting to access the system, as well as those that have been waiting in line since the first one ran out of funds."
Daniel Fikru, owner of The Blue Nile Cafe in the River Market, said the bottom line for his business is to make sure they keep the doors open. Fikru’s is applying for a second time to receive funding from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
"We probably need to pay expenses during the slow down,” Fikru said. “We don't know how long this is going to continue. We're hoping a few weeks."
Salisbury predicted the website will remain busy. Nearly $10 billion was approved within the first five hours after the portal opened.