Banks await new pronouncement from CMF for loans to SMEs with state guarantee

SMEs are waiting for banks to make available the state-guaranteed loans announced by the government through Fogape. And while the bill was already approved in Congress, there were still two key issues that needed to be resolved before the industry had these loans.

The first of these was the regulation published on Saturday by the Ministry of Finance in the Official Gazette, where there were no major surprises for the banks that were aware of the talks with the government, since everything stipulated there was adjusted to what was previously discussed. . The second key issue to be resolved was an announcement to be made by the Financial Market Commission (CMF) to relax provisions in line with what is required by regulation.

That is how this Monday the CMF announced that now the relaxation of provisions for commercial loans will not be four months as previously reported, but six months, in line with what is required by regulation, since banks must give a grace period of six months, in addition to reprogramming for six months all the current credits that the SMEs that access the Covid-19 lines have.

However, the bank points out that key points were missing in the announcement of the CMF, so, as the regulations are today, it would be difficult for them to provide loans to some SMEs.

For example, the regulations of the Ministry of Finance establish that these credits with state guarantee can be accessed by micro or small companies that have not been more than 30 days past due on October 31, 2019, that is, those who have been good payers until before of the social outbreak, and medium and large companies that have not been more than 30 days past due as of March 31, 2020, that is, those who have been good payers until before the coronavirus arrived in the country, will be able to access it.

But as announced by the CMF, the relaxation of provisions is only to reschedule credits to clients with up to 30 days past due at the time the loan is delivered, that is, the flexibilities of provisions for now do not contemplate what the regulations stipulate , which allows, for example, that micro and small companies that are currently more than 60 days past due can access the Covid-19 lines.

This implies that it would be more expensive for banks to deliver credits to SMEs that are more than 30 days past due, since they would have to constitute additional provisions, so they would be more restrictive when delivering Covid lines for companies that are in this situation, despite what the regulations say. In this way, the industry is waiting for the CMF to issue a new pronouncement in this regard, otherwise many SMEs would be left out.

All in all, the bank hopes that the first week of May they can begin to approve these loans for SMEs, but the transfer of resources would occur later, depending on the time it takes Fogape to deliver the money. For this reason, the industry is adjusting all its processes this week.

One of the novelties that the regulation for SMEs brings, and that has not been done before, is that banks may not initiate bankruptcy proceedings for liquidation, executive trials or executions of any kind, with respect to those companies that have secured financing Covid-19. This applies not only to the bank that provides the credit, but also to the rest of the industry.