Standard Chartered announces Three-month holiday on loan, mortgage repayment
Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania's head of retail banking Ajmair Riaz,
What you need to know:
The bank says, the relief measures which will be granted to clients, will be based on a criteria that will consider financial impact arising from cases such as unpaid leave, salary reduction, job loss, infected customers, loss of business and other reasons that the Bank may find reasonable during this unprecedented time.
Dar es Salaam. Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania has become the first Bank in Tanzania to announce relief measures for its Individual and Business Clients whose income and cash flows have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement issued by the bank’s country Head of Retail Banking , Mr. Ajmair Riaz said that his team has been working very closely with the Bank’s clients in the Individual and Business segments to understand the financial challenges that they are facing during this unprecedented time.
“During this unprecedented period, we understand the challenges that prevail including from a financial aspect. In this regard, we have been reaching out to our clients to discuss how the pandemic is affecting them and the various challenges that they are facing.
We have, therefore, based on discussions with our various clients, decided to take proactive actions to introduce relief measures that will ease the financial burden for our Individual and Business Clients whose income and cash flows have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.” Mr. Riaz said.
Mr. Riaz added that Standard Chartered Bank has looked into a number of options for supporting its clients and had narrowed down to two effective measures which comprise of either a payment holiday or tenor extension for loan repayments.
He highlighted that these options are open to individual who have personal loans or mortgages with the bank, as well as business clients, mainly in the SME sector, who have taken loans from the bank.
He also added that the relief measures whichwill be granted to the Bank’s clients, will be based on a criteria that will consider financial impact arising from cases such as unpaid leave, salary reduction, job loss, infected customers, loss of business and other reasons that the bank may find reasonable during this unprecedented time.
Speaking about the specific options of the relief measures Mr. Riaz explained that clients who opt for the option of a payment holiday will get a three-month moratorium, and the option of the extension of the Loan Tenure entails a twelve-month additional period to make repayments, resulting into smaller repayment instalments that the bank’s clients can bear.
“Our Clients continue to be the reason why we are in business, and why we are ‘Here for good’ as per our brand promise. We are also committed to enhancing prosperity for our clients. As we go through this unprecedented period, we remain committed to supporting them to come out of it with minimal impact, if any, on their financial status. We, therefore, believe that the options of a three-month moratorium and a twelve-month extension on the loan repayments tenure will go a long way in minimizing the financial impact to our clients, and we will discuss these options with them accordingly as and when we receive their requests.” Mr Riaz added.
As the country continues to combat the spread of the pandemic, Mr. Riaz urged the Bank’s clients to further leverage on the Bank’s Digital capabilities. He highlighted that the bank’s full digital bank on Mobile offers more than seventy banking services thus enabling users to carry out all their transactions without needing to come to any of the bank’s branches.
The central bank’s move
According to the BoT, its measures were meant to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.
The bank announced key monetary policy measures, which it said would protect financial sector stability and bolster the economy from Covid-19, which has had a devastating effect on economic activities around the globe.
The measures include lowering the statutory minimum reserve requirement-the amount of cash banks must maintain as reserve from seven to six percent to provide lenders with additional liquidity.
BoT also reduced the discount rate- the level of interest at which commercial banks borrow from the central bank- from seven to five percent to allow them to access cheaper loans, hence signaling lower lending interest rates.
Other measure include allowing banks to borrow from BoT with less collateral than before by reducing haircuts on government securities from 10 percent to five percent for treasury bills and from 40 percent to 20 percent for treasury bonds.
