COVID-19

Banks ready to ease loan repayments

March 19, 2020 4:23 pm

Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis there is some hope for people with bank loans.

The financial institutions have in principal agreed to invoke hardship allowance repayments under the Consumer Credit Act.

Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum  says a meeting was held with the Association of Banks yesterday where these issues were discussed at length.

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“We hope to have some further meetings with them – but there is a general agreement in principal – that firstly we have the Consumer Credit Act. Under this Act – that relates to personal mortgages and hire purchase for example, there is a hardship allowance.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says the financial institutions are looking at repayment holidays where they will be deferring principal amount payments.

“Which means for example in some instances could be complete stop of repayments, or could be only interest payments, And then of course there are many other loans that fall outside of the Consumer Credit Act for example – the small businesses and other large businesses and again Banks have shown an appetite to stop repayments. This does not mean that if you are running a very healthy business and you have not been affected by COVID-19, you will also get that holiday. It is for all those businesses who have actually been affected.”

The government is also in talks with the Fiji National Provident Fund to discuss how members can access funds and how much they can access. An announcements in this respect will be made soon.

The Minister says people should use internet for their banking needs instead of physically going to the banks.

“And you will see now, many of the other banks now are further building capacity in the digital space so people don’t necessarily physically have to go to the banks to access funds or even for that matter deposit – so they will be able to use machines.”

The Minister has also assured that in terms of lending, banks have said there is a healthy liquidity in the market and any projects that are eligible for funding will be accommodated.