State Bank extends refinance facility for the health sector

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday expanded the refinance facility at lower rates for health sector in order to combat COVID-19.
On March 17, 2020, the central bank introduced a refinance scheme, titled Refinance Facility to Combat COVID-19 (RFCC), to support the hospitals and health sector for providing services to directly fight against COVID-19.
Under this scheme, the banks provide concessional loans at a maximum end-user rate of 3 percent for 5 years for hospitals and medical centres to purchase medical equipment and set up isolation wards for developing capacity and supporting the health sector in fight against COVID-19.
From its inception to 2nd July 2020, Rs6.4 billion of concessional credit has been approved for hospitals and other eligible facilities to fight COVID-19.
Keeping in view the encouraging response and the potential to help developing the health facilities in the country, the SBP has now expanded the scope of this refinance facility further.
The scheme now allows manufacturers of protective gears and equipment, including items such as masks, dresses, testing kits, hospital beds, ventilators, etc., to avail financing under RFCC.
Moreover, to cope with the rising needs of the health facilities in general in the country, the SBP has allowed hospitals serving patients even other than COVID-19 to avail this facility.
Refinance facility will be available for setting up or expansion of the existing hospitals fulfilling minimum specified standards. For setting up new hospitals under this scheme, payments will be released by the banks on completing relevant milestones.
The RFCC is highly subsidized facility where SBP provides refinance to banks at zero percent whereas banks can keep a maximum margin of 3 percent. Some of the banks treating this as part of their CSR are keeping margins very low. – TLTP