Borrowers get more relief in repayment

The Bangladesh Bank yesterday extended several facilities for repayment of loans as the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has hit the country.

The borrowers of working capital and demand loans would be able to pay the instalments of their loans till June 30 this year, the deadline for which was earlier till March this year, reads a central bank notice.

A working capital loan is taken to finance a company's everyday operations while a demand loan is one that a lender can require to be repaid in full at any time.

Clients will enjoy the relaxed facility based on the banker-customer relationship and the lenders cannot downgrade the loans during the period, the BB notice adds.

The working capital loans, whose repayment periods have already expired, will be treated as regular loans till June 30 of 2022 if the borrowers pay their unpaid interests on a quarterly basis, as per the BB notice.

The interest of the working capital loans of last year, the repayment periods of which have already expired, can be paid within June 2022 in six quarterly instalments.

Borrowers of demand loans will be able to repay their loans in eight quarterly instalments from March this year to December 2022.

The lenders cannot downgrade the loans if borrowers have paid their quarterly instalments, the BB said.

On the other hand, if borrowers have failed to pay their instalments, the lenders will be able to remove the facility, as per the BB notice.

The borrowers who got loans from several stimulus funds announced by the government will not be able to get the relaxed repayment facilities.

The BB has taken such an initiative to deal with the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and to normalise the credit flow in the banking sector, said a senior official of the central bank.

Businesses welcomed the central bank’s step and said the relaxation in the repayment terms would help them recover smoothly.