The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will spearhead the launching of the Nueva Ecija Credit Surety Fund (Nueva Ecija CSF) at the Harvest Hotel, Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, today, Wednesday. BSP Monetary Board Member Felipe M. Medalla and Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio M. Umali will lead partner institutions, participating cooperatives and various stakeholders in the signing of a memorandum of agreement for the formal creation of the Nueva Ecija CSF as the 40th CSF established in the country.
Initiated by the BSP in 2008, the CSF Program is a credit-enhancement scheme created by the pooling of cash contributions of participating cooperatives, local government units and partner institutions. This fund serves as security for loans extended by banks to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) participating in the CSF Program. The CSF, through the issuance of a surety agreement, allows cooperatives and capital-short MSMEs to secure loans from banks despite the absence of hard collateral. As of end-May 2015, total accumulated loans approved by lending banks under the CSF Program amounted to P1.74 billion, of which P1.47 billion have already been released to around 15,000 MSMEs/cooperatives.