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TRECE
MARTIRES CITY, Cavite—The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
has partnered with the private sector and local
government units in a surety fund program to grow the
business of lending to micro, small and medium
enterprises, or MSMEs, from this point onward.
The
launching of the credit-enhancement program on Wednesday
was the first in a series designed to make lending to
MSMEs more affordable and accessible to a greater number
of people down the line, BSP Governor Amando Tetangco
Jr. said.
The
surety fund opens bank credit to MSMEs without the
mandatory real-estate collateral.
“With
the Credit Surety Fund program in place, the
disbursement of credit should be quicker. This
democratizes access to credit,” Tetangco said.
He told
local executives here, led by Cavite Gov. Ayong Maliksi,
the program’s immediate impact paves the way to
competitive lending rates for borrowers in Cavite.
Commercial lending rates range from 24 percent to 36
percent a year, or 2 percent to 3 percent a month. With
the surety fund in place, rates should range from 14
percent to 17 percent a year.
Without
the interest spread of 2 percent to 5 percent to cover
the cost of the surety, lending rates for MSMEs should
only cost borrowers 12 percent, according to Tetangco.
BPI
Family Savings Bank president Alfonso Salcedo Jr.
welcomed the creation of the Credit Surety Fund program,
although he said it was hard to say at this point if
lending rates would fall in the near term.
“But
this definitely is a positive development and very good
for the economy,” Salcedo said.
“I like
this program from the personal viewpoint and as a
professional. I have always been against mendicancy and
always for self-help programs like this,” he added.
BPI
Family Savings’ parent firm, the Ayala-owned Bank of the
Philippine Islands (BPI), was among the first to
mainstream microlending into its core business as a
lender.
Salcedo
also said the gap between families sorely needing access
to credit and those who actually receive it was
estimated at 60 percent.
“We all
know the very wide gap, and that is why programs like
this are very important,” he said. |
