Borrowers urged to contact banks over moratorium

KUALA LUMPUR: Individuals in need of financing repayment assistance need to respond immediately or go to their respective banks to confirm the extension of the moratorium offered to prevent a bad credit score, says Deputy Finance Minister II Mohd Shahar Abdullah.

The response from individuals and small and medium enterprises (SME) were still not as expected, he said in a statement.

“I was informed by the banks that they are ready to provide assistance and process applications from the public. I am worried if the public and SMEs wait until the last minute to start negotiating and applying for financing assistance from the banks,” he said.

Mohd Shahar said the banks needed one to five days to process applications from individual customers and three days to two weeks from SMEs.

Meanwhile, he said most banks had implemented the targeted moratorium extension and financing repayment flexibility programme from Aug 7.

As at Aug 21, the banks have contacted 1,015,848 borrowers, comprising individuals, SMEs and other companies, including corporates and commercial businesses to offer financing repayment assistance. There is only 29 days left to the automatic moratorium assistance.

Within two weeks beginning Aug 7, a total of 139,424 applications for financing repayment assistance from individual customers were received, of which 109,172 were approved.

For SME customers, including micro-entrepreneurs, 5,017 applications were received, of which 4,300 were approved. — Bernama