Source: Turkish Daily News.
Original news wire available here.
To read Microcapital’s story on this news wire, visit here.
Hurriyet, Istanbul, August 15 – HSBC Turkey has allocated USD 5 million for microcredit, a system through which billions of dollars have been dispersed across the world’s impoverished areas, for use until 2010. “Here the important thing is to establish the necessary infrastructure in order to deliver the microcredit, rather than the amount,” said Piraye Antika, chief executive officer of HSBC Turkey. “Microcredit enables women to launch businesses with the primary aim to provide a sustainable income source in the struggle against poverty.
“We consider it as a corporate social responsibility project,” Antika said. “We prefer this system because it is forward-looking, sustainable, able to be a part of the balance sheet and accretive, instead of aid or donation.”
Antika said HSBC had started to work with three nongovernmental organizations. They are the Turkish Waste Prevention Foundation, or T?SVA, the Community Volunteers, or TOG, and Female Labor Assessment Foundation, or KEDV.
“We allocated USD 5 million on our balance sheet for microcredit until 2010. One-third of the amount was appropriated for the more deprived parts of cities, one-third will be used in rural areas and the last third will be for young university-graduated entrepreneurs,” she said.
“We specified a low interest rate as Turkish Lira Reference Interest Rate (TRLIBOR) 1 percent for the microcredit. The 1 percent addition is used either for donations or growing the microcredit sum,” said Atika, adding that the allocation and tracking of the loans is quite labor-intensive.
“Launching a business with microcredit provides the users self-confidence and financial benefit as well as contributing to social welfare through bringing different parts of the society together,” Antika said. “It also strengthens the role of the women. They gain the opportunity to employ their husbands via launching a business through using microcredit.”
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