Bangladesh Bank under a special policy has extended the facility of rescheduling of defaulting loan (one time exit) till December 31 this year.
"Borrowers, who were given special loan rescheduling or 'one-time exit' facility will get time extension facility to repay their outstanding loans until December 31 of this year," said Bangladesh Bank (BB) in a circular on Monday.
Due to the prolonged second wave of Covid-19, the one-time exit beneficiaries have been given the facility to repay their loans considering the negative impact of business and economic losses, the BB said. The BB added that under the new guidelines, the one-time exit facility will remain in force if the repayments against the one-time exit loan and investment are repaid by the last working day of December 2021.
In 2019, the central bank allowed the defaulters to enjoy a waiver of their whole unrealised interest, if they applied to pay back their loans within one year by giving a 2.0 per cent down payment.
Under the facility, such defaulters got loan payment deferral facility for instalments, which were overdue between January 1 and December 31, said BB's Banking Regulation and Policy Division in its circular.
A large number of borrowers, however, failed to pay their loan instalments in time due to economic adversity amid Covid-19 pandemic.
The clients also enjoyed moratorium facility throughout the last year, and the central bank extended the time by another six months until June to repay the loans under the 'one-time exit' facility.
The clients would enjoy the relaxed provision now, if they repay their total loans within this December, according to the BB circular.
On May 16, 2019, the defaulters were allowed 10-year loan repayment tenure, including one year grace period, through payment of 2.0 per cent of their loans as down payment.
Apart from the rescheduling for 10 years, the BB also allowed settlement of defaulted loans under the scheme, allowing the defaulters to enjoy interest waiver for the preceding period of loan settlement.
A BB circular said the loan payment deferral facility would be applicable for the defaulters who received the rescheduling facility on easy terms.
On September 21, the BGMEA in a letter said many customers' applications for one-time repayment of interest-waiver and post-waiver loans on special facility (for a period of one year) were approved by the bank's board. But due to the coronavirus epidemic, many people could not repay their loans on time.
In such cases, the customers or institutions who applied for special benefits and got the approval of the board of the bank but could not repay the loan in one year due to the Corona pandemic, were asked to extend the period for one more year. In view of that demand, the central bank has increased this facility.
