Banks provided €15 billion in coronavirus support to 180,000 customers

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis in the Netherlands, Dutch banks offered financial support to 180 thousand businesses and consumers in the form of loans or postponed repayments. This involved an amount of over 15.2 billion euros, the Dutch association of banks NVB announced on Friday, NOS reports.

In mid-April, banks had offered 11 billion euros in support to 117 thousand corporate and private customers. According to the NVB, the number of new loan applications declined over the past few weeks. The association believes this is because many companies are okay at the moment due to postponement of payments and government support.

Consumers can ask their bank to postpone repayment on their mortgage or other loans. So far 31 thousand consumers have received this respite, involving an amount of 75 million euros. According to the NVB, that figure barely increased in the past two weeks.

Companies can apply for postponed repayments as well as loans guaranteed by the State. Dutch banks have now issued 4,300 such State guaranteed loans. All in all, banks offered over 21 thousand new loans to companies since the start of the crisis, with a total value of 12.2 billion euros.