In the hope of making its Main Streets Lending Program more attractive – and more useful – to small businesses suffering through the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve has again changed the eligibility criteria. The new minimum loan size to participate in the program has been reduced to $100,000. Initially, the Main Street program was designed to assist businesses that would not qualify for PPP loans from the SBA so it established a $1 million loan minimum and the program was launched by the Fed in April. With few businesses participating, the loan minimum was cut in half at the end of the month to $500,000 and reduced again by another 50% to $250,000 in June. Along with this latest reduction in the minimum loan amount, the Fed made other adjustments to the program with the hope of increasing participation. For example, going forward PPP loans of up to $2 million will be excluded from calculating the size of a possible Main Street loan. The $600 billion program was funded in part by the CARES Act and introduced with much fanfare, but it never got close to its lending potential as through last week, it had only closed just over 400 loans at a total of $3.7 billion. You can access more info on the program here.