The COVID-19 pandemic has created \a crisis like no other," with a projected global economic contraction of 4.9 percent in 2020.1 It has induced tremendous stress on nancial institutions, with an unprecedented demand for their services. Li, Strahan and Zhang (2020) show that, during the last three weeks of March 2020, commercial banks faced the largest increase in demand for credit ever observed. Among rms that needed emergency liquidity, small businesses have been hit the worst: According to a recent State of Small Business Report, nearly one third of small businesses have

shut down; and many that still survive have faced important challenges with liquidity and revenue.2 Our paper studies the role of FinTech in an important government program aimed at providing immediate relief to small businesses during this crisis.