The National Microfinance Corporation becomes the National Microfinance Bank and launches a low-income loan

Damascus-Sana

The CEO of the National Small Finance Corporation, Munir Haroun, described Law No. 8 related to the establishment of microfinance banks as a paradigm shift in terms of supporting the financing of small projects and expanding the segment of the beneficiaries of lending and granting flexibility for the work of the specialized banks.

In a statement to SANA's delegate, Haroun revealed that the Foundation will launch today an immediate loan to be applied for the first time in Syria, which is an immediate consumer service loan of one million Syrian pounds without guarantees except for the salary and is intended for people with limited income, as they will receive the loan in less than 24 hours and at an interest rate of 13 percent.

Haroun pointed out that the name of the institution will become “The National Bank for Microfinance”, while the Board of Directors of the Foundation will soon call for an extraordinary general assembly meeting based on the executive instructions of Law No. 8 of 2021 that were recently issued in order to later reconcile the status of the institution in cooperation with the Central Bank of Syria during The legal deadline set by the new law.

Haroun explained that the new law gave advantages to banks in the microfinance sector, as it reduced the tax value on them from 25 percent of real profits to 14 percent, which reflected positively on the interest borne by the borrower and became between 6 and 12 percent of the value of the loan instead of the previous one, where it was Between 12 and 18 percent, this will attract more loan recipients.

Haroun explained that the National Foundation grants productive, educational and agricultural loans and the national loan for those discharged from the military service, regardless of whether they are registered in the National Aid Fund, and all of these loans range between 250 thousand and 25 million pounds, and there is the loan allocated to Aleppo under the name (Hello Aleppo) with a value of 25 million After it was 5 million, it was exempt from interest and was launched after the liberation of Aleppo to support small projects in it.

It is noteworthy that the National Microfinance Corporation was established at the end of 2011 based on Decree No. 15 of 2007 and started its work in 2012 and now has eight branches and it is working to create five offices in a number of regions and has provided its services so far to 25 thousand citizens.