Firstrand donates R100m to help medical effort as banks step forward to help customers in a jam

Several of the large banks in South Africa have pitched in to help customers deal with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Standard Bank has announced a second wave of relief for people earning R7,500 or less providing them with a three-month instalment relief after a payment holiday had been offered for SMEs and full-time students last week. It comes into effect at the end of the month. Absa Bank has announced similar measures with short-term liquidity relief for credit products and Absa said the programme will not attract additional administration fees. Absa said support to corporate and business banking clients would entail solutions based on their unique requirements and operations. Firstrand has in addition to what it is doing for customers, offering instalment cashflow relief; announced a private-public venture to help the medical effort in the fight against the coronavirus. R100m has been allocated for Spire, an initiative established by the bank to scale up critical care capacity in South Africa. First Rand COO, Mary Vilakazi told Alec Hogg that Spire had already funded 100,000 test kits. – Linda van Tilburg