Kafala issues 7280 bail bonds worth 3,590 million riyals

Riyadh-Amlak
The number of guarantees provided by the Kafalah program to finance small enterprises through the development initiative between the Ministry of Finance and Saudi banks since its launch from 2006 to the end of last year reached 7,280 guarantees with a total value of 3,590 million riyals and benefited 4,028 thousand small and medium enterprises on various economic sectors in the Kingdom.
This was explained by the head of the Kafalah program for financing small and medium enterprises, Engineer Osama Al Mubarak, while speaking at a press conference held recently to launch the sixth promotional campaign for the Kafalah program for financing small and medium enterprises in cooperation with Saudi banks.

<Al Mubarak said that the number of sponsorships during the past years was only 1,000 and the number was increased this year to 2,000. He explained that the program used to sponsor 50% out of two million applicants and since 2009, it has become 80% for the advanced customer from various economic activities and there is an integrated team from the program to reach remote areas through cooperation with commercial banks spread in various regions of the Kingdom to provide training to the residents of these areas and easy to know how to obtain financing.

For his part, Talaat Hafez, Secretary of the Media and Banking Awareness Committee in Saudi Banks, explained that the program is looking to activate the interaction and cooperation between banks and the SME sector by guaranteeing a percentage of the financing provided by banks in favor of these enterprises by up to 80% in order to support and stabilize them. Hafez revealed that the rate of default during the past years in the loans provided to customers does not exceed 1% and the volume of provisions in Saudi banks is estimated at more than 150% and the announcement of these allocations to banks will reflect positively on these banks, unlike some other countries where there is a reservation about announcing the size of these allocations. Hafez praised the achievements of the program since its inception, as it has achieved steady growth that effectively contributed to adding qualitative value to the national economy and recently won the Mohammed bin Rashid Award for supporting youth projects in the category of the best development fund for the year 2013 at the level of the Arab world.