Small Business Corporation is ready to reopen its Covid 19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises (CARES ) Program online Borrower Registration System (BRS) on August 17, 2020.  Online loan applications received prior to this date are already on the final stages of processing, maintaining a queueing of first come first serve basis.

Tagged as CARES 2 to distinguish it from the initial run of the Program,  this upcoming CARES window will require all applicants to apply through SBCorp’s online BRS found in this link  https://brs.sbgfc.org.ph . Manual applications  will no longer be accepted.

The loan features of CARES 2 is the same as CARES 1 including loan limit, zero interest rate, service fee, grace period and repayment term.  The same identification and business registration documents are required.

However, for ease of loan release as well as to reduce physical contact and minimize community transmission of Covid-19, loan applicants under CARES 2 requesting loans more than P 30.0 thousand are required to have a bank account where SBCorp will deposit the loan release proceeds.  The bank account should either be Land Bank of the Philippines or any PESONet or InstaPay participating banks.

For loan applications P30.0 thousand and below, electronic money accounts (EMA) such as GCash and PayMaya may substitute the bank account requirement.

The bank/EMA account must be under the name of the loan applicant.  Loan applicants will not be able to proceed with their online application without their bank/EMA account details.  Moreover, SBCorp will not allow a change in  bank/EMA account details during the loan release phase, relative to what is indicated in the online loan application.

Loan applicants in CARES 2 will also be  required to submit the following during the online application:

• Three photos  of the enterprise’s operations and fixed assets, inclusive of business signage.  Image file size should be limited to less that 2 MB; and

• A 1 to 3 minutes video on the business’ operations, with the loan applicant explaining the enterprise’ products and services, buyers and suppliers, level of sales and number of employees.  For ease of uploading, the video may be cut into one minute sections.

A sub-system within the online BRS shall be provided for MSEs that are able to submit these SSS and BIR-filed documents. Those without these papers shall be evaluated via the main BRS channel.

In case the  loan applicant has an outstanding negative credit track record with any financial institution (FI) prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, an approved payment arrangement with subject FI should be first secured.  Otherwise, the loan application will be automatically denied.

Loan processing of applications of formally registered MSEs who are able to submit the following documents shall be completed in a few working days upon documents verification:

a.  SSS registration of employees in 2019, to serve as basis for number of employees prior to the Covid-19 pandemic; and

b.  BIR-filed financial statements for 2019, to serve as basis for volume of annual sales.  The subject financial report should indicate a positive net income.

Finally, loan applicants must ensure  the correct encoding of their first, middle and last names.  The name on the application must be the exact same name on the borrower’s government issued ID and supporting documents. Otherwise, the loan application shall be rejected.  The loan applicant will have to submit a new online application.

SBCorp is committed to deliver the much needed assistance of our MSEs as fast as we can while making sure that the barest minimum standards of our lending guidelines are observed and complied with.  This is the reason why we have further streamlined our processes towards this end.

For additional information, please contact the P3 Hotline at 8651-3333 for NCR and our toll free hotline 1800 10 651 3333 for those outside Metro Manila.