The U.S. Small Business Administration has received more than 340,000 submissions to its Paycheck Protection Program forgiveness portal since launching the tool two weeks ago for borrowers with PPP loans of $150,000 or less.

More than 1,230 PPP lenders have opted to participate in the Direct Borrower Forgiveness Portal, the SBA said in a statement Wednesday, adding that these lenders represented over 50 percent of loan forgiveness applications that remain outstanding.

“With outstanding debt saddling millions of disadvantaged and underserved small businesses, increasing the rate of forgiveness to PPP borrowers will have an immediate effect in helping the smallest of small businesses recover from the pandemic and access other resources,” the SBA said in the statement.

Borrowers have taken on average six minutes to complete the online forgiveness application, the SBA said, receiving forgiveness decisions within a week. Half of the 340,000 applications submitted through the portal have been notified of the forgiveness decision so far, with full or partial forgiveness approvals totaling more than $2.4 billion.

“We are incredibly excited that in just two weeks, the Direct Borrower Forgiveness Portal is providing small businesses with a streamlined, user-friendly way to apply for forgiveness and receive relief on these essential PPP loans,” Patrick Kelley, Associate Administrator for SBA’s Office of Capital Access, said in the statement. “Already, we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of borrowers navigating quickly and easily through the process, and we continue to proactively help borrowers apply through extensive outreach and webinar trainings. We encourage all lenders to opt-in to this tested portal.”

Lenders must opt in for their borrowers to be able to use the portal, and several Massachusetts-based lenders are participating, according to the SBA’s most recent list of lenders, including BayCoast Bank, Leader Bank, Needham Bank and Reading Cooperative Bank. Most large banks are using their own portal for forgiveness for all borrowers, including Bank of America and Chase.

City of Boston Credit Union, which offered PPP loans this year after not participating in 2020, recently told Banker & Tradesman that the credit union had decided not to enroll in the SBA’s portal. Neil Gordon, City of Boston Credit Union’s president and CEO, said he preferred to have the credit union work directly with borrowers on forgiveness to ensure that the application was correctly completed and that borrowers receive the maximum forgiveness amount.

“I’m afraid that if they fill it out wrong, they’re not going to receive the forgiveness, and they’re going to receive a disservice,” Gordon said.

About 11.5 million total loans were issued in the 2020 and 2021 PPP lending rounds, according to SBA data, and 5.6 million forgiveness applications had been received as of Aug. 15. The SBA said in Wednesday’s statement that before the portal opened, 700,000 forgiveness applications from the 2020 round had not been submitted.