July 20 (SeeNews) - State-owned Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) said on Tuesday it is extending the application deadlines under its interest-free loan guarantee programme for individuals temporarily unemployed due to the pandemic and its loan guarantee scheme for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) affected by the Covid-19 crisis.
Individuals will be able to apply for interest-free loans until August 31, 2021 or until the guarantee limits for financing by partner commercial banks are exhausted, the BDB said in a statement.
The BDB issues guarantees on loans of up to 6,900 levs ($4,100/3,500 euro) with a term of between six months and five years, and a maximum grace period of two years under the interest-free loan programme.
In December 2020, the BDB extended the application deadline of the interest-free loan guarantee programme until June 30, 2021 or until exhaustion of the guarantee limits. In February 2021, the BDB said that part of the partnering commercial banks will temporarily stop accepting applications as their guarantee limits have been met. The interest-free loan guarantee programme was restarted at the end of March.
The bank also said in its statement that firms can submit their applications under its loan guarantee scheme for liquidity support to SMEs by December 20, 2021. The deadline for including the loans in the guarantee portfolio has been extended until December 31, the bank added.
The maximum amount of a single loan under this scheme is 2 million levs. BDB guarantees 80% of the value of each loan.
At the end of October, the state-owned lender extended the application deadline under the loan guarantee scheme until the middle of June 2021.
So far, the BDB has approved loans for over 559 million levs under the two anti-crisis programmes, supporting 52,320 individuals and more than 1,800 companies, it said.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)