As digital lenders finally make their move into Paycheck Protection Program loans, fintechs OnDeck and BlueVine partnered with banks this week to begin processing loans through the Small Business Administration’s stimulus program. 

“Small business owners are dealing with enough uncertainty, and we know their time is valuable,” OnDeck CEO Noah Breslow said in a statement. “We plan to carefully scale our application intake to ensure an outstanding customer experience and avoid excessive wait times between approval and funding.”

The SBA program kicked off with a rocky rollout that has seen banks struggling to process the flood of applications from small businesses anxious to stay afloat. Fintechs have been eager to get involved with their own technology to handle the volume, but a lack of guidance from the SBA has kept them on the sidelines until now. 

OnDeck and BlueVine now join a growing list of fintechs starting to distribute PPP loans. Square Capital, Intuit’s QuickBooks Capital and PayPal have all received approval to participate in the program. 

The Treasury Department and SBA rolled out the PPP on April 3 as a way for lenders to provide funding to small businesses hurting from the COVID-19 crisis. The loans, designed to keep employees on payroll and help businesses survive prolonged closings, will become grants if business owners use the funds appropriately.  

See also: Fintechs, lacking guidance, pivot to SBA loans 

OnDeck will partner with Salt Lake City-based Celtic Bank to deliver the PPP loans, and will start lending to existing customers with hopes to slowly build out to new customers. The publicly traded OnDeck, which is based in New York City, already offers term loans and lines of credit to small businesses. The company says it has disbursed $13 billion in loans since its 2006 founding. 

BlueVine, meanwhile, is partnering with Fort Lee, N.J.-based Cross River Bank to deliver the PPP loans. According to the company, anyone can apply, not just existing clients. Founded in 2013, BlueVine has raised more than $690 million, according to Crunchbase. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company offers term loans, lines of credit and invoice factoring to clients, and says it has provided more than $3 billion in funding. 

The move by BlueVine and OnDeck to partner with banks this week comes in spite of last week’s news from the SBA that fintechs could apply to become direct lenders with the administration. OnDeck said it submitted an application to become a direct SBA lender and is awaiting final guidance on that front, while BlueVine announced Tuesday afternoon it had received approval to be a direct non-bank lender of PPP loans.