People who have had their income impacted by Covid-19 will be able to have a mortgage repayment holiday, the Finance Minister announced today.
"Retail banks have agreed to provide a mortgage repayment holiday scheme for people whose incomes are affected by Covid-19," Grant Robertson said today.
"A six-month mortgage holiday for people whose incomes have been affected by Covid-19 will mean people won’t lose their homes as a result of the economic disruption caused by this virus."
"I know people will be anxious to know the details of how this will impact them, we thought, given the very high level of interest from the public and media, that we announce this agreement today. The exact criteria will be announced in the coming days."
The Reserve Bank agreed to help banks with capital rules.
"It has decided to reduce bank's core funding ratios from 75 per cent to 50 per cent, further helping banks make funding available," he said.
Also announced today, a $6.25 billion Business Finance Guarantee Scheme which sees the Government underwrite bank loans for small and medium-sized businesses.
It will have a limit of $500,000 per loan, for firms with a turnover between $250,000 and $80 million per year.
The Government will carry 80 per cent of the credit risk and the remainder by banks, Mr Robertson said.
Yesterday, the wage subsidy scheme jumped from $5.1 billion up to $9.3 billion - pulling the worth of the entire business package up to $16.3 billion.
"As of this morning there has been 117,273 applications, with 41,505 approved and $687 million, obviously these numbers move every single moment."
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