SME Foundation and Brac Bank join hands
Economy
The SME Foundation, through the Brac Bank, will provide Tk20 crore SME loans to entrepreneurs of eight SME clusters.
Following the previous 10 years' trend, the Brac Bank can now charge at best 9 percent interest rate on lending money to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The SME Foundation and the Brac Bank inked three agreements to expand the foundation's credit wholesale programme under the re-financing programme of the Bangladesh Bank.
The agreements were signed at the meeting room of SME Foundation headquarters in Dhaka on Sunday.
Managing Director of the SME Foundation Md Shafiqul Islam and Brac Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Selim RF Hussain signed the deals on behalf of the respective side.
As per the deals, entrepreneurs of Gaibandha's Gobindaganj Hosiery Cluster will get Tk6 crore loan in the next five years.
Cricket Bat cluster entrepreneurs from Narendrapur of Jashore and Bolodia of Pirojpur will get Tk2 crore loan while the rest of Tk12 crore loan will be distributed among entrepreneurs of leather goods cluster at Kishoreganj's Bhairab, Brahmanbaria, Chattogram's East Madarbari, Noakhali and Dhaka.
Every entrepreneur can get a loan of Tk1 lakh to Tk25 lakh from the Brac Bank without any collateral security.
In the last 11 years, the SME Foundation gave Tk16.50 crore loan to 328 entrepreneurs of eight clusters through the Brac Bank and the Eastern Bank.
Earlier, the Bangladesh Bank signed a loan agreement of Tk50 crore with the SME Foundation to expand the foundation's credit wholesale programme.
In last 11 years, under the credit wholesale programme of the SME Foundation, the foundation provided Tk92 crore loan among 1857 entrepreneurs under 31 clusters and cliental groups from different areas of the country through 12 banks and financial institutions. Of them, 1345 were male entrepreneurs and 512 females.
The loans were provided through the Mutual Trust Bank, NCC Bank, Eastern Bank, Trust Bank, Bank Asia, Dhaka Bank, Brac Bank, NRB Bank, United Commercial Bank, South East Bank, Midas Financing and IDLC Finance.
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