Small Business Loans Support A Central Piece Of President Obama's Jobs Plan
Online, April 15, 2010 (Newswire.com) - President Obama continues to work with Congress to expand the allocation of small business loans enhanced with special provisions from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), including a higher guarantee of SBA-backed loans and a waiver of loan fees normally paid by borrowers. ARRA supported small business lending programs were originally set to run out at the end of 2009, but Congress passed an extension of the program that was worth approximately $1.8 billion. The current extension of ARRA loan guarantees expired on March 28th. At present, the funds allocated to fund small business loans have yet to be exhausted.
In order to efficiently process the loan applications submitted to date, the SBA has established the Recovery Loan Queue process - loans that are approved by the SBA are funded as ARRA funds are made available. You can learn more about the SBA and the ARRA Recovery Loan process by clicking here. Currently, the funds that were appropriated for small business loans have not been exhausted, but time is running out!
The recovery loan queue has three distinct stages: green, yellow and red. When the loan process is in the green phase, there is still a substantial amount of federally guaranteed funds available and the likelihood that loans processed during this phase will be funded is high. As the queue progresses from green to yellow to red, the amount of available funding decreases. To learn more about the recovery loan queue or to check the ARRA loan funding stage, visit the SBA website here.
After the current recovery funds are exhausted, applications in the Recovery Loan Queues will be funded as monies become available through cancellations of previously approved Recovery Act loans. After that time, you may still qualify for a small business loan, however SBA loans approved after that date will be funded as non-Recovery Act loans with higher fees and lower guarantee levels.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can pre-qualify for a small business loan, click here.
