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Harare Bureau
NMB Bank has not floated another tender for its two-year $50 million mortgage-backed Small to Medium Enterprises bond issue which opened during the last quarter of 2013 after the Bank managed to raise funds from other sources.NMB Bank managing director Ben Washaya yesterday told our Harare Bureau that the bond is still running but no new tenders have been floated.
He said NMB has raised about $4 million from the SME Mortgage Backed Bond but the bank’s loans to the SME sector are significantly more than that and continue to grow. “Regarding the NMB SME Mortgage Backed Bond, NMB has not floated another tender for the bonds since the last allotment in the first quarter of last year.
“The bank managed to raise more attractive or cheaper funds from other sources so we decided to postpone the issuance of more bonds to a later date,” said Washaya.
He said the delay in floating other bond tenders has however not prejudiced the bank’s initiative to support SMEs because they are using part of the additional funds to lend to the sector. “Going forward, we will continue to closely monitor the trading environment and the bank is in constant engagement with stakeholders so that the timing of future bond tenders is right,” added Washaya.
Last year the Bank announced its intentions to raise about $5 million from investors such as pension funds to provide loans for SME’s that had the capacity to pay back the money.
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