Over ₱3 Billion Remains in CARES Program Available for MSMEs to Loan

The government’s www.bayanihancares.ph is still offering aid for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) looking for avenues to restart or boost their operations amidst the prolonged pandemic.

Over ₱3 billion worth of loans remains as part of the Bayanihan COVID-19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises (Bayanihan CARES) program. Initially, the program was granted ₱8.08 billion to be reserved for MSMEs, cooperatives, hospitals, tourism businesses, and repatriated or displaced OFWs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far, only 31,700 MSME loan applications have been approved by the implementer of the CARES program Small Business Corporation (SBCorp) — an agency under the Department of Trade and Industry. This amounts to secured total loans of ₱4.84 billion.

Depending on the pre-pandemic sales and business assets figures of a certain MSME, loans can range from ₱10,000 to a maximum of ₱5 million. These are interest-free and collateral-free loans, but an upfront service fee is necessary. It can go up to a maximum of 8% for a maximum four-year loan term, but shorter loan terms will warrant lower service fees.

“We had to strategize how to design, develop and fund the IT application systems and IT connectivity that we needed to put in place. The challenge was heightened by the need to limit most of our meetings to online venues, instead of the usual face-to-face environment which allows for more interactive brainstorming. And we had limited IT equipment in the beginning relative to the emerging scale of digitization required,” explained SBCorp president and CEO Luna Cacanando on making the loans more accessible.

SBCorp “went through a deep rethinking on how to safely provide quick financing response to affected small businesses which we knew will increase in great numbers as the pandemic crisis is prolonged,” Cacanando added.

Source: Rappler