Square Capital Resumes Business Lending

Square Capital, the small business lending division of Square, resumed offers for its “core flex loans” in late July, the company announced. However, there will be “stricter eligibility criteria.”

Square Capital made no core flex loans in Q2, having paused in mid-March on news of the impending crisis.

The company pivoted to PPP lending in Q2 in the interim and through this program managed to fund over 80,000 small businesses for a grand total of $873 million. The average came out to approximately $11,000 per loan.

Square says that in PPP they “expanded awareness of Square Capital as 60% of [their] PPP borrowers had never before received a loan through Square.”

Loss rates during Q2 were about 2.5x prev-COVID levels, a range they accurately predicted might happen at the end of Q1.