Israel’s central bank announced a new programme on Thursday, aiming to help small-scale businesses deal with the coronavirus crisis.
The new plan, which would take effect from Jan. 1, 2021, would give small businesses which had been significantly affected by the crisis ease in repaying loans to the banks.
Thus, businesses that meet cumulative conditions would be entitled to defer repayments without the discretion of the lending bank.
The deferral would be for a period of up to one year on loans up to 500,000 new shekels (about 154,000 U.S. dollars), and for a period of up to six months on higher amount loans.
According to the Bank of Israel, the plan is expected to reduce the monthly charge by more than 70 per cent.
Between March and November, the Israeli banking system approved about 181,000 applications submitted by small businesses for deferral of loan payments, totalling 3.5 billion shekels, according to the central bank.
As at the end of October, loans of about 60,000 businesses are in repayment deferral, for which the balance of credit is about 12 billion shekels. (Xinhua/NAN)
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