The central bank has slashed interest rate on loans under its refinancing scheme for small enterprises by 2.0 percentage points to facilitate women entrepreneurs, officials said.
All the scheduled banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) have been asked to lend to the women entrepreneurs under the refinancing scheme at maximum at 5.0 per cent interest instead of 7.0 per cent, according to a notification issued by the Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Wednesday.
"We've slashed the interest rate on such loans aiming to encourage women entrepreneurs across the country," a BB senior official told the FE while explaining the main objective of the notification.
On the other hand, the banks and NBFIs are now allowed to receive refinancing only for women entrepreneurs from the central bank at 0.5 per cent interest instead of 1.0 per cent earlier.
Currently, a total of Tk 15 billion worth of refinancing funds are now available for the women entrepreneurs under the refinancing scheme.
