Additional Progress After Exhaustion of Existing Agreement Guarantee Loans
Over 700 Small Business Owners Used the Program in the First 5 Months
Woowa Brothers has decided to add 100 billion KRW to the agreement guarantee loan for small business owners. This will proceed after the existing 105 billion KRW loan guarantee is exhausted.
Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baedal Minjok, announced on the 25th that it will additionally proceed with an agreement guarantee loan program worth 100 billion KRW in the second half of the year for small business owners who have difficulty obtaining loans.
Small business owners who have already received guarantee support will be able to receive additional support as the guarantee limit will be increased from the existing 100 million KRW to 200 million KRW starting from the 2nd of next month. The support target has also been expanded to include small business owners in general and alley-type shopping districts. The previous targets were small business owners in the food service industry and merchants located in traditional markets. Shopping districts are areas densely populated with wholesale and retail stores, designated respectively by presidential decree or local government ordinances.
This program is a method in which Woowa Brothers and KB Kookmin Bank provide guarantee funds to small business owners in the food service industry. The money contributed by the two companies is used as guarantee funds, and the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund issues guarantee certificates to small business owners. Small business owners receive loans by substituting insufficient credit or collateral with the guarantee certificate. KB Kookmin Bank applies a preferential interest rate of up to 2 percentage points to small business owners using the agreement guarantee.
For small business owners busy with their livelihoods, mobile reception windows were operated in some areas. Small business owners located in Itaewon 1 and 2-dong were allowed to use the agreement guarantee loan regardless of industry restrictions to promote the revitalization of the Itaewon commercial district in Seoul. Since the program started in December last year, guarantee certificates worth 27.1 billion KRW have been issued to about 700 small business owners in the food service industry and traditional markets over approximately five months.
Kim Jung-hyun, Head of Value Management at Woowa Brothers, said, "After the existing 105 billion KRW program is exhausted, we will add 100 billion KRW in the second half of the year to better assist small business owners."
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