SBA 7(a) Loan Program Saved by Congress

The SBA’s famous 7(a) program which hit its annual allotted cap last week was saved yesterday by Congress. The SBA’s fiscal year, which resets on October 1st, was given an emergency budgeted increase of nearly $5 billion. That brings the 2015 cap to $23.5 Billion.

2015 has brought a surge of business lending in all shapes and forms, including SBA loans. At least one tech-based lending platform, SmartBiz, was potentially in limbo when the cap was reached since their model is almost entirely dependent on the 7(a) program.

Join @SmartBizLoans & @FitSmallBiz – plz sign this petition to keep the SBA 7(a) loan programming running http://t.co/TSAQ0Cytn4 #smallbiz

— SmartBiz Loans (@SmartBizLoans) July 26, 2015

We reached out to SmartBiz last week to get their thoughts about the program’s suspension but before they could respond, Congress acted to keep the program running.

The dollar amount of 7(a) loans issued each year under $150,000 is about equal to the total dollar volume of loans business lender OnDeck will do in 2015. As of July 11th, that figure for the SBA was at $1.69 Billion.

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future AltFinanceDaily events here.