Small Business Corp. (SB Corp.), an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said it has approved 32,823 loan applications from its Covid-19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises (Cares) program with a fully digitalized loan application system.In a statement, SB Corp. said these correspond to a total loan amount of P5.1 billion out of the P8.08 billion available for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), tourism businesses, cooperatives, hospitals and repatriated or displaced Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) affected by Covid-19 pandemic.Cares is an interest-free and collateral-free financing program that aims to assist MSMEs recover from the adverse effects of the pandemic.The borrower MSMEs will only need to pay a one-time service fee, which is set at a maximum of 8 percent for a 4-year loan term.SB Corp. fully digitalized its loan processes shortly after the lockdown last year.Evelyn Felias, SB Corp. head of Information Technology Group, said they had planned the digitalization of its financial services as early as 2019 and was able to implement it when the lockdown started.The digital process starts from the registration of the potential borrower, submission of documentary requirements and approval, up to the releasing of the loan.In an earlier forum, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez noted that around 73 percent of small businesses in the Philippines as of September last year are in need of capacity-building initiatives or support in digitalization their businesses.DTI conducted a study and noted that the Philippines is lagging behind its neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in adapting digital transformation for their businesses.It noted that the Philippines is in "level zero" or a "level below basic" in the Asean categories of digitalization of businesses.Asean small businesses are under the basic category when they use email and mobile devices in their businesses. Intermediate category is when they start selling online, while advanced category uses data analytics in their businesses.Assistant Secretary Jean Pacheco, who heads DTI e-Commerce Program Office, noted that given the statistics, DTI is working to innovate and implement programs under the E-Commerce Roadmap 2022 that can give MSMEs the capacity to rebuild by providing them with domestic and international market access, digitalization and logistics integration. "We found that 23 percent of [our] respondents have mobile phones but they don't use them for business, only for personal use. That's what we're trying to do at DTI, we need to identify what level they are in, or what category they belong to so that the appropriate intervention can be given to that particular MSME in its digital transformation journey," said Pacheco.Pacheco said that digitalization in businesses is seen to accelerate, especially the adoption of e-commerce, citing the 2021 Digital Report showing that 80 percent of internet users bought something online.

Source: Manila Times August 15, 2021 15:44 UTC