Govt Housing Bank offers to help people hit by tropical storm Podul

Chatchai Sirilai, the bank’s president, said many provinces, especially in the North and Northeast, were affected by the storm, with many areas hit by flash floods that destroyed homes and farms. 
As part of its “housing loans for natural disaster victims”, the bank has earmarked Bt1 billion to provide individual loans based on the amount of damage caused by floods. 
As the first measure, GH Bank will offer a respite to people who owe house loans or mortgages by bringing the annual interest rate down to 0 per cent for the first four months, and then raising it to 4.125 per cent from the fifth to 16th month. From the 17th to 24th month, the annual interest rate will rise to 4.625 per cent and on the third year, the interest rate will rise to 5.625 per cent per annum. 
After this, the GH Bank will reduce its minimum retail rate (MRR) of 6.625 per cent by 1 percentage point for welfare clients and by 0.5 percentage point for retail clients. 
As the second measure, the bank will allow new and old home-loan holders to seek additional funds to repair damages at home. This loan will be provided at a fixed interest rate of 3 per cent per year for three years, after which welfare clients will be charged a floating rate of MRR that is 1 percentage point less than the bank’s normal rate, and retail clients will be charged 0.5 percentage point less. 
The bank will also consider loans of Bt1 million each for clients seeking a second loan, and will cancel some fees. 
In the third measure, debtors who are affected by the disaster and unable to make payments, the bank will bring the interest down to zero for the first four months, and then set the interest rate at 1 per cent for the fifth to 16th month. Once this period ends, the debtors will have to pay the normal rate.
For the fourth measure, debtors who have been affected by the flood and are unable to earn a living will only have to pay 1 per cent interest for a year. 
In the fifth measures, families of debtors who have died or have been handicapped by the disaster will pay off the loan at 0.01 per cent annual interest rate. 
For the sixth measure, clients whose homes were irreparably damaged by flooding will only have to pay for the land.
As a seventh measure, the bank will speed up compensation for clients who have insurance that covers natural disasters. The bank will immediately approve compensations of Bt15,000, but will provide no more than Bt20,000 for homes that have sustained damage from floodwaters higher than 100 centimetres.