South Africa- based FNB has joined Standard Bank and Nedbank in offering measures to alleviate the woes of financially distressed clients as COVID-19 cases continue to mount across South Africa, causing financial disruption.
FNB, which is owned by FirstRand, reaffirmed its commitment to help small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) individual customers whose financial position was adversely impacted by COVID-19.
The lender said it could assist the SMEs to stabilise cash flow and consumers who wanted to cover unexpected expenses.
“We will make further announcements on the nature of this support in the days ahead,” it said.
FNB said SMEs and an economically viable consumer market were vital to the country’s economic growth prospects.
Last week, Standard Bank announced interim debt repayment measures to help segments of its customers.
The SA Reserve Bank has yet to impose a moratorium on debt repayments by those suffering loss of income due the epidemic.
Standard Bank said the payment relief for the bank’s small enterprise customers with turnover of less than R20m ($1.1m) would commence on April 1 and run to the end of June.
It said it would set up automatic new payment terms for these small businesses to assist them with managing their cash flows, while allowing them to honour payments to their own employee base.