Central Bank helping to get Mayo businesses back on track

As part of The Central Bank’s ongoing Covid support videos, it has recently released a video around Covid 19 SME supports available to business.

The bank's SME regulations are designed to protect SMEs and help get businesses in Mayo back on track with their loans when they engage with their lender.

The SME regulations include various protections for SME customers who may be at risk of going into arrears, or are in arrears.

These include requiring lenders to:

Provide borrowers with specific written reasons for refusing or withdrawing credit.

Have policies and procedures in place with a core objective of assisting borrowers to resolve their financial difficulties.

Contact borrowers who are in arrears for 15 working days, in order to identify the reason why the arrears have arisen.

This will allow them to assess whether the borrower’s circumstances are such that the requirements placed on firms for dealing with borrowers in financial difficulties should apply to that borrower.

Have an internal appeals panel in place to appeal certain decisions made by a firm.

If you are in, or at risk of, financial difficulty, it is in your interest to engage with your lender about those financial difficulties.

If you contact your lender, your lender must offer you an immediate review of your credit facility agreements, alternative arrangements and security, as appropriate and must inform you of the outcome of that review.