KUALA LUMPUR: Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) has extended its repayment assistance to over 420,000 individual and small and medium enterprise (SMEs) customers, worth more than RM77 billion as at August 31 this year.
In a statement today, Maybank said the customers, who have some 500,000 loan and financing accounts, represented close to one third of its total Malaysia consumer and small to mid-sized business loan and financing portfolio based on outstanding balance.
Maybank community financial services group chief executive officer Datuk John Chong said the proportion of loans and financing under repayment assistance based on outstanding balance had more than doubled within the last two months following the automatic six-month moratorium offered effective July 2021.
"We have approved all eligible repayment assistance applications made under the Pemulih programme by individual, microenterprise and SME customers and will continue to offer repayment assistance to borrowers requiring continued financial assistance arising from the disruption to their livelihoods due to the Covid-19 pandemic."
"Although we are now seeing the gradual reopening of the economy following the successful vaccination roll-out, we do understand that there remain some customers who continue to need a helping hand given the impact they have experienced from the various movement restrictions," Chong said.
He said out of the total repayment assistance loan and financing portfolio based on outstanding balance, 69 per cent was under the deferred instalment (moratorium) option.
Maybank said it had been providing repayment assistance to all its affected customers since the early days of Covid-19 with its own scheme launched as early as February 2020 in the initial stages of the pandemic.
Subsequently, the bank supported the various repayment assistance initiatives announced by the government beginning April 2020.