LOANS PAYMENT HOLIDAY NOT FREE-FOR-ALL

MBABANE - As the nation awaits more announcements from local banks on how they will assist their clients during the coronavirus crisis, it turns out that it is not everyone who will benefit.

Instead, the banks will offer generous loan deferrals to those clients who have been adversely affected by the pandemic. This means that the decision to defer the repayments of loans will be done on a case-by-case basis. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19, this publication has been inundated with calls from members of the public calling for banks to initiate a payment holiday on home loans, vehicle finance loans, credit card, and overdraft repayments. This has been motivated by the fact that banks in various countries have scrambled to offer relief for those whose lives, jobs and businesses have been upended in the crisis.

Confusion

As expected, there has been confusion among members of the public with some arguing that everyone deserved the payment holiday as the pandemic affected all in different ways. For a clear understanding of the issue, this publication sought clarity and enlightenment from some of the local banks. While most of them emphasised that they were still in consultation with all stakeholders involved, they were in support of the move to assist their clients who had been greatly affected. One of the institutions is the First National Bank, which has already issued a statement on the issue. Last Friday, the bank confirmed that it had initiated major interventions to help emaSwati manage the challenges posed by COVID-19.

According to the bank, some of the measures were already effective, with the interventions impacting fees targeted for implementation by April 7, 2020 (tomorrow) and shall run for a period of between one to three months, ending June 2020. The financial institution mentioned that it was providing instalment relief and temporary credit lines for qualifying small and medium enterprises (SMEs) customers who were hardest hit. “We have already started assisting SMEs on specific requests that have been structured around their unique business circumstances and operational requirements. We are aware that there are expectations for blanket payment holidays for everyone, but in a situation where the impact is more severe for certain customers, the limited financial resources at our disposal have to prioritise those customers and direct assistance to them, especially small and medium-sized business,” said FNB Eswatini CEO Dennis Mbingo.

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