KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Banking Group has approved more than RM500mil Special Relief Facility (SRF) applications to more than 700 Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
The bank said the SRF is part of Bank Negara’s fund for SMEs with an allocation of RM5bil, which has been made available under the RHB SME’s Financial Relief Assistance Programme to assist SMEs adversely affected by Covid-19.
“RHB has approved more than 700 SRF applications from SMEs out of the more than 1,500
applications received so far, with a total facility amount in excess of RM500mil,” group managing director Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli said in a statement Wednesday.
He said the highest number of approvals granted are from the wholesale and retail trade sectors, at 31% with a total facility amount of RM155mil.
This is followed by 16% from the manufacturing sector at RM79mil, while the rest are mainly for SMEs from the various services sectors.
Eligible SMEs can obtain working capital financing of up to RM1mil at a financing rate of 3.5%
per annum, inclusive of any guarantee fee, with a maximum tenure of up to 5.5 years, including the six-month moratorium period.
The facility is available under term financing and has up to 80% guarantee coverage by Credit Guarantee Corp Malaysia Bhd (CGC) or Syarikat Jaminan Pembiayaaan Perniagaan Bhd.
Khairussaleh said the bank saw an encouraging 36% of SRF applications being submitted through the online platform and encouraged SMEs to make use of its digital platform particularly during this MCO period.
