SME Bank urges TCG to relax rules on guarantee
THE SMALL and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand (SME Bank) will urge the Thai Credit Guarantee Corporation (TCG) to relax its guarantee conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises that have been blacklisted by the Credit Bureau.
SMEs that have been blacklisted by the Credit Bureau are unable to be guaranteed by the TCG unless they undergo debt restructuring. However, in practice, SMEs need new funding to improve their cash flows before they can approach banks for debt restructuring.
SME Bank discussed this matter with the TCG earlier but no solution was forthcoming. Bank chairwoman Salinee Wangtal said the government might need to step in to help resolve the issue.
Apart from its plan to help blacklisted SMEs, the bank plans to reduce its minimum lending rate (MLR) from 7 per cent to 4 per cent per annum for three kinds of SMEs: start-ups offering innovative products; small businesses with the potential to upgrade to medium size; and SMEs wishing to expand into other Asean countries.
The bank will ask the State Enterprises Policy Commission to approve the granting of credit lines of up to Bt50 million to small businesses seeking to be classified as medium-size. Previously, the commission, or so-called superboard, wanted SME Bank to limit its small-business loans to Bt15 million.
The bank is also asking the Finance Ministry to make up the shortfall of 3-percentage-points after it reduces its lending rate to 4 per cent for the three special categories.
According to the bank, the Cabinet on Tuesday gave it the green light to set aside Bt15 billion for lending to SMEs that have been unable to recover from the economic slowdown and to set its interest rate at 4 per cent for certain categories.
SME Bank on Thursday trimmed its MLR by 25 basis points to 7 per cent to help soften the financial burden on SMEs. However, unlike some commercial banks, it did not cut its fixed deposit rate after the recent cut in the policy rate by the Bank of Thailand. In the first two months of this year, SME Bank reported net profit of Bt244 million.
It approved new loans of Bt4.87 billion to 2,446 SMEs in the period, limiting loans to Bt15 million in line with the bank’s vision of focusing on small enterprises.
