• FNB has announced that businesses can now apply for a loan up to R10 million to purchase backup energy solutions.
• The bank has said that individuals will be able to take up the offer before the end of the year.
• Businesses with a maximum turnover of R300 million per annum are eligible to apply.

As South Africans dread the return of Stage 5 loadshedding at 16:00 today, FNB has announced that businesses can now access funding for alternatives to their energy needs.

The Energy Bounce Back Loan Guarantee Scheme was announced by National Treasury earlier this year. After much deliberation, businesses were able to start taking up these loans at the start of August.

“The Energy Bounce‐Back (EBB) Loan Guarantee Scheme is an initiative in support of resilience of small businesses and households to the continual difficulties resulting from unreliable power supply and/or loadshedding. The EBB aims to incentivise the generation of an additional 1000MW of power through rooftop photovoltaic solar over the next 12 months (terminating on 30 August 2024), whilst helping small business and households mitigate the effects of loadshedding,” Treasury explained last month [PDF].

FNB has today said that its business clients can now apply for this loan scheme with applications for individuals coming “before the end of the year” according to FNB chief executive officer, Jacques Celliers.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to once again enable customers to invest in Solar equipment via the National Treasury EBB loan guarantee scheme as we did in the previous schemes. Energy security continues to be one of the key challenges for individual customers, families, and businesses. As a financial services partner, we want to help our customers meet their day-to-day requirements to enable them to thrive. While we have been supporting our customers with a range of solutions to build resilience against energy challenges, we believe that the Energy Bounce Back Loan Scheme adds significant value as it allows us to help many more,” Celliers said in a press statement.

As this is a loan, businesses will need to meet certain criteria in order to qualify this includes a credit and risk evaluation being conducted by the bank. The loan is only available to businesses with a maximum turnover of R300 million per annum. Loan amounts can range from a minimum of R10 000 to a maximum of R10 million. The loan is also earmarked exclusively for backup energy solutions and as such, can’t be used to pay back existing debt.

There are likely other stipulations deep within the terms and conditions but it’s worth contacting FNB for more information.

For individuals, there is some benefit to taking up this offer.

FNB says that once available, customers can apply for an FNB Personal Loan which ranges from R3 000 to R300 000 at a personalised interest rate. Then, once you tell FNB that the loan is earmarked for backup power solutions, the interest rate is lowered to prime (11.75 percent) plus one percent.

As mentioned, the loan for individuals should be available before the end of the year.

While FNB offers backup energy solutions through its mobile app, we’d recommend shopping around before making a purchase.

[Image – Karl Callwood on Unsplash]