Bank of Valletta, in collaboration with the Malta Development Bank, has launched an additional sub-scheme under the BOV-MDB COVID Assist specifically targeted at small- and medium-sized companies.
“Bank of Valletta has been strongly supporting the business community by providing liquidity to entities adversely hit by COVID-19. We are giving special attention to micro and small SMEs as these are highly vulnerable in these challenging times. We sought to ensure that in general we do not seek hard collateral in line with the scheme requirements and current realities. Experience is showing that small firms are finding it particularly challenging to provide the extent of soft collateral being requested by banks, when seeking to raise the required levels of financing,” Albert Frendo, chief credit officer from BOV, said.
“With this in mind, and following the agreement signed with the Malta Development Bank, BOV will be further facilitating access to finance by requesting significantly lower personal guarantees and other soft collateral from entities requiring loans up to €250,000 under the BOV-MDB COVID Assist.”
The BOV-MDB COVID Assist provides enterprises with accessible and affordable financing, helping them meet their working capital requirements, running costs and expenses. The small loan guarantee scheme provides for loan amounts up to €250,000 with reduced soft collateral requirements up to 20 per cent of the loan value, highly-subsidised interest rates and moratoria on capital and interest repayments. This sub-scheme, similar to the BOV MDB COVID Assist, benefits from the government’s interest rate subsidy scheme for the first two years of the loan.
“We have already demonstrated to be the main drivers of the MDB COVID-19 guarantee scheme; suffice to highlight that by end June, 80 per cent of total facilities approved under this scheme were underwritten by Bank of Valletta. As Malta’s leading bank, we will continue with our drive and commitment towards the regeneration of the Maltese economy during these tough times,” the BOV chief credit officer concluded.
Interested businesses are to send an e-mail to smefinance@bov.com, or if they are BOV customers, they may contact their relationship manager or Business Centre. More information is available at www.bov.com/content/bov-mdb-covid19-assist.