{"id":41200,"date":"2020-04-10T19:57:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T19:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/i-m-bank-offers-three-month-moratorium-downs-base\/"},"modified":"2020-04-10T19:57:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T19:57:28","slug":"i-m-bank-offers-three-month-moratorium-downs-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/i-m-bank-offers-three-month-moratorium-downs-base\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#038;M Bank offers three-month moratorium, downs base lending rate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The epidemic has led to the closure of businesses in Rwanda and suspension of many non-basic business activities. <\/p>\n<p>The decision follows a review and consideration by the executive committee and the board of directors on ways to further support customers and their businesses during the post COVID-19 recovery period.<\/p>\n<p>Robin Bairstow, I&#038;M Bank Chief Executive Officer stated that &#8220;by reducing the base lending rate, I&#038;M Rwanda aims at making lending products more affordable to clients. SMEs account for a majority of businesses in Rwanda and contribute about half of Rwanda\u2019s Gross Domestic Product as well as employment. We are aware of their role in the economy and I&#038;M Bank Rwanda has brainstormed solutions to support them to get back on track after the lockdown.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For example, on a mortgage of RWF 50 million, the reduction will put nearly RWF 19,000 per month back in the pocket of the average client of the Bank.<\/p>\n<p>The rate reduction is in conjunction with the Bank&#8217;s commitment to offer a grace period of up to 3 months for principal and\/or interest payments in support of business or retail clients who are being financially affected by the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Bairstow said that the reduction of the base lending rate was implemented with an understanding that many clients&#8217; businesses have been interrupted by the pandemic and could have cash flow and liquidity challenges.<\/p>\n<p>A statement from I&#038;M Bank (Rwanda) Plc signed by the CEO, Robin Bairstow, reads: \u201cIt is especially living in these times of living through a pandemic that I&#038;M Bank wants to let you know that we are in this together. To support our clients and customers, we are reducing our  base lending rate by 0.5% from 16.5% to 16% starting April 15, 2020.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Bairstow also encouraged customers to make use of the many digital platforms at their disposal for transactions as one of the ways of nipping coronavirus spread. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are other innovations and interventions introduced to ease transactions. We have removed costs for sending money digitally; customers can use Spenn for free in all branches to avoid physical handling of money notes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-35453 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/umuyobozi_mukuru_wa_i_m_bank_rwanda_plc_ubwo_yaganiraga_n_abanyamakuru_mu_buryo_bw_ikoranabuhanga-ed90b.jpg\" alt=\"Robin Bairstow, I&amp;M Bank Chief Executive Officer said that I&amp;M Rwanda aims at making lending products more affordable to clients. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#038;M Bank (Rwanda) Plc has revised downwards the base lending rate from 16.5% to 16% to reduce the cost of lending products, making them more affordable to customers amid the COVID-19 pandemic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[204],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-41200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-elina-jonas-ruzindaza"],"bylines":[{"id":204,"name":"Elina Jonas Ruzindaza","slug":"elina-jonas-ruzindaza","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":103}],"contributors":[{"id":204,"name":"Elina Jonas Ruzindaza","slug":"elina-jonas-ruzindaza","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":103}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41200"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=41200"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=41200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}