KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — The Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM) has expressed its concerns to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) over the upcoming expiry of the six-month loan moratorium at end-September 2020.
BNM on Friday held a meeting engagement with ACCCIM to seek the business community’s feedback on the loan moratorium.
The meeting was chaired by BNM deputy governor Jessica Chew and attended by senior officials of the central bank. Also present were ACCCIM president Tan Sri Ter Leong Yap and the Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC) executive director Lee Heng Guie.
In a statement today, Ter said the association hoped that BNM would announce the follow-up flexible repayments programme to help individuals and businesses manage through this difficult time.
ACCCIM also shared the findings of its survey, titled “Malaysia’s Business and Economic Conditions Survey” for the first-half of 2020 with BNM.
The survey revealed that a higher 37 per cent of companies indicated that they have less than three months cash flow to cover business operations while 42 per cent of respondents have 3-6 month’s cash flow.
About 45.7 per cent of total respondents need an additional six months of loan moratorium while 20.7 per cent are asking for an additional three months.
Ter said BNM had informed that the financial institutions are currently actively engaging with borrowers to offer assistance for their loan repayment and credit facilities after the end of automatic loan moratorium in September.
Amongst the flexible repayments are lower monthly instalment, step-up repayment, and loan tenure extension.
The targeted approach will assist sectors and borrowers that operate and work in highly vulnerable industries and sectors and those that operate and work in highly vulnerable industries and sectors which would take a longer time to recover.
He said towards this end, the central bank had urged borrowers to make early preparation to engage with their bankers in crafting a suitable flexible repayment programme based on their financial positions and needs.
Ter said ACCCIM welcomed BNM and financial institutions’ continued proactive approaches to assist businesses and borrowers in loan repayments programme to support the economic and business recovery so as to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We would also like BNM to consider giving more flexibility in allowing any Rescheduled and Restructured (R&R) loans/financing to not be classified as credit-impaired in the Central Credit Reference Information System and Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) until 2021,” he added.
