SBFA calls on clients to honour their loan agreements so that others can benefit too |19 October 2017

The chief executive (CEO) of the Small Business Financing Agency (SBFA) has said that up to date, the agency has managed to clear most of its pending cases approved last year. The remaining ones are mainly due to formalities yet to be completed by clients themselves.

CEO Rosanda Alcindor said this in an interview yesterday with the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation. She said that from the R31 million, only R2 million remains to be disbursed by the end of this year.

“So far, SBFA has cleared most of the loans which were approved last year, and since July this year, it has been considering cases for new loan applications received last year.  It is expected that most of the requests will be cleared by the end of the year,” Ms Alcindor said. 

She was speaking after the SBFA board had decided to halt lending on loans until all backlogs are cleared. This is because there has been an increase in requests for loans, and the funds allocated from the budget, and total loan repayments were not sufficient to cater for all the loan requests received.

This decision was taken during the board’s meeting and it will be maintained until the back logs are cleared.

According to Ms Alcindor, there are about forty (40) remaining applications left for this year which are being considered, pending different formalities. They will be brought to the board’s attention for consideration.

She said that the budget allocated by the government is disbursed on a quarterly basis and is used on a monthly basis by SBFA.

And on the issue of repayment of the loans, SBFA has stated that there has been an increase in the amount collected, mainly due to the campaign done throughout the year to encourage clients to repay their loans and honour their commitment.

According to Ms Alcindor reminder letters are sent to clients first, and if they still do not respond, their names are called on the radio, and listed in the Seychelles NATION paper. And if after all this clients still do not respond, then legal measure is taken.

She also noted that SBFA is always open to discuss and negotiate with clients on a better repayment schedule to ensure that it is done well and in the interest of both parties.

Ms Alcindor said that in the past, SBFA was more lenient, but now stricter measures will be taken against defaulters; if a client already has a loan, he/she will not be assisted as has been the case in the past, until their loan is cleared.

SBFA receives a total of R25 million from the government every year. The maximum loan amount being provided by SBFA is R300,000.

Ms Alcindor pointed out that in most cases, clients have tried commercial banks for loan assistance. She said that it is difficult for the clients to get assistance from commercial banks for various reasons among which are high interest rates, or they are required to provide collateral, assets, personal contribution to name a few. At SBFA, she said, clients do require collateral and guarantor but not personal contribution; and interest is at 4.5% if one is borrowing below R75,000 and R4.7% above R75,000.

This year, Ms Alcindor noted that repayment from clients has increased during the past year or two; for example this year it has amounted to an average of up to nearly R3 million per month. She said that the increase is also due to recent recruitments and boost in human resources and that by next year, better evaluation and monitoring, including more visits to clients will be done.