KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — SME Bank has submitted an application to Bank Negara Malaysia for an additional RM200 million fund through the Targeted Relief and Recovery Facility (TRRF) in conjunction with the financial aid announced by the government under the RM40 billion Pemerkasa Plus stimulus package.
SME Bank group president and chief executive officer Aria Putera Ismail said the bank had fully utilised its previous allocation and approved financing worth RM150 million since it was first introduced last year.
“Starting with movement control order 1.0 (MCO 1.0), SME Bank became the first development bank to offer the SME Relief Programme (SRP), a customer-friendly targeted payment assistance plan.
“Looking at the challenging economic environment, SME Bank took another proactive approach by launching the SRP 2.0 whereby this targeted payment assistance was extended further until Sept 30, 2021.
“Under the SRP, SME Bank had assisted 3,084 eligible customers with a financing value of RM4.1 billion,” he said in a statement today.
Apart from the TRRF, SME Bank will also continue to provide the Pemerkasa Plus SME Go financing scheme, which is part of the economic stimulus package specifically to assist contractors (G2-G4) who have been offered contracts by the Federal or state governments, ministries, departments, or agencies.
Contract financing will be funded by SME Bank through its MySMEBina for construction or infrastructure contracts or MySMEBekal for supply or maintenance contracts.
The Pemerkasa Plus SME Go financing scheme is for working capital purposes with a financing limit of up to RM1.0 million.
Meanwhile, SME Bank has also taken proactive steps by offering discounts and deferment of rental payments to tenants at the Entrepreneur Premises Complex as well as at SME Bank’s head office since last year which generated operating cost savings of RM6.1 million to the tenants.
“To support Pemerkasa Plus, the bank has agreed to waive the rental fees for another seven months from June-December 2021 with a cost savings of RM6.6 million.
“This is to ease the burden faced by our tenants and enable entrepreneurs to prepare enough cash flow to revitalise their operations post-MCO 3.0,” added Aria. — Bernama
