INTEAN Poalroath Rongroeurng topped the table in the first quarter for the highest ratio of non-performing loans in Cambodia’s 21 microfinance institutions, new data show.
The information was contained in a first-quarter report released by the Cambodian Microfinance Association (CMA) on Thursday. It noted that outstanding loans at the Kingdom’s MFIs, excluding small loans from ACLEDA bank, rose 4.5 percent quarter-on-quarter to US$312.7 million from $299 million. The number of borrowers declined 1.66 percent to 863,933.
The average non-performing loan rate, which records loans that have been in default for more than three months, declined 0.15 points to 2.71 percent, or $8.5 million, in the first quarter of this year.
The data show that the three MFIs with the highest NPL rate at the end of Q1 were Intean Poalroath Rongroeurng (IPR), Thaneakea Phum Cambodia (TPC), and Samic, at 7.44 percent, 4.55 percent and 4.51 percent respectively.
IPR’s outstanding loans were $3.74 million and the NPL rate rose from 5.2 percent to 7.44 percent, or $279,221, quarter-on-quarter.
“The rise is due to our loans mainly focusing on agricultural crops. For this type of loans, repayments could not be regularly on time,” said general manager Hort Bun Song. “Another reason is due to our amount of outstanding loans declining, so it pushed up the ratio of NPL,” he said.
IPR hopes to cut NPLs 3 percent to 4 percent by year’s end.
Outstanding loans at TPC were $18.5 million in the first quarter, with the NPL rate dropping to 4.55 percent from 4.92 percent.
“The rate is still good and despite being high. It declined in Q1 due to our effort to strengthen the quality of our staff so that they can be better in judging clients for receiving loans,” General Manager Chuon Sophal said. He said that TPC still earned a profit of $200,000 in the first quarter and is committed to cutting NPL rates to 2 percent.
Samic recorded a small quarterly decline of 4.51 percent from 4.89 percent. General Manager King Kap Kalyan told the Post that Samic could collect the debts from client income this year. The profit at Samic dropped about 40 percent in Q1.
Big players Prasac, Amret and Sathapana recorded NPL rates of 1.62 percent, 3.04 percent and 1.97 percent respectively.
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