Standard Chartered loans Philippine bank CARD $1.62 M

Standard Chartered Plc. has agreed to lend Philippines-based Card Bank P75 million, or about $1.62 million.

This is the first microfinance loan of the British bank in Southeast Asia, according to a Bloomberg report.  

CARD will use the money to open more branches, benefitting farmers and rural industries linked to its 360,000 borrowers, Standard Chartered said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday.  

"There's a vast opportunity in the region to support microfinance institutions," Prashant Thakker, the London-based bank’s global head of microfinance, said in the statement.

Standard Chartered has pledged to provide development organisations with $500 million of credit to fund microfinance institutions in Asia and Africa by 2011, according to the statement.

Microfinance is the provision of small loans to low-income people to spur entrepreneurship.

View the report in Bloomberg.

Do you know more about this story? Contact us anonymously through this link.

Click here to learn about advertising, content sponsorship, events & rountables, custom media solutions, whitepaper writing, sales leads or eDM opportunities with us.