Federal Reserve announces new lending program to enhance support for small- and mid-sized businesses

The Federal Reserve today announced the terms of both expanded and new "Main Street" lending facilities that would provide loans to a variety of eligible borrowers, including borrowers that obtain loans through the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration and larger borrowers with up to 10,000 employees or $2.5 billion in annual revenues.

The Federal Reserve term sheet specifies that these facilities will be available to "businesses" without specifically addressing, or excluding, non-profits. The AHA in an April 3 letter to the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman urged them to implement this loan program quickly and make it available to hospitals of all ownership types, including municipal, county and other public hospitals.

Lenders under the Main Street program will include U.S. insured depository institutions, U.S. bank holding companies, and U.S. savings and loan holding companies, which will retain a 5% participation in the loans, with the other 95% funded by a Federal Reserve special purpose vehicle.

The combined expanded and new Main Street facilities have the capacity to make up to $600 billion in aggregate loans.