Given the skyrocketing cost of credit in the country, where banks are charging interest rates close to 23 percent effective per year only for home purchases, according to recent figures from the Financial Supervision, Bancolombia announced this Thursday that it established a maximum rate for this credit segment of 14.15 percent effective per year. And if the credit is subsidized by the National Government, the rate will be almost 10 percent in the first years.
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Juan Carlos Mora, president of Bancolombia.
The ad did Juan Carlos Mora, president of the entityby announcing not only Bancolombia’s results in 2022 but also the plans planned for the new year, among which it is offering interest rates lower than those of the market for housing acquisition.
«Housing construction is one of the most vibrant engines of our economy. However, we are aware that the current economic situation, in which the prices of inputs and interest rates require an increase, is beginning to have an impact in its dynamism. For this reason and to accompany people and our builder allies at this juncture, we have decided to support the purchase of VIS housing, of projects financed by bancolombiawith a strategy that we have called ceiling rate”, explained the manager.
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The foregoing is part of a plan drawn up by the bank to help thousands of people who currently have housing loans, which includes the possibility of changing their repayment system UVR to pesos and apply the ceiling rate to them. «In this way we contribute so that they keep up to date with their obligations,» Mora said.
The executive added that this strategy also allows supporting its construction partners to boost their sales at a challenging economic moment: «the construction of each house generates 4 jobs, a wide network of productive chains of 34 subsectors of the economy and an annual investment equivalent to 5 points of GDP. We move forward with the interest of exploring formulas similar to this in other business fronts”.
Results
When presenting the balance of activities of the entity in 2022, Juan Carlos Mora said that the volume of credits disbursed reached 141 billion pesos to people, SMEs and companies, in general. «We have had a special focus on sectors such as the self-employed, SMEs and agriculture due to the effect they have on the productive activity of the country and on the well-being of households. To give an idea, only in 2022 the self-employed obtained credits for more Out of 4.3 billion, we gave the agricultural chain 10.5 billion, and 18.7 billion to SMEs”.
Mora also indicated that in terms of financial inclusion there is a great effort to be made so that more people in the country have access to formal credit, which is why they continue to strengthen alternatives such as App at hand, which is already used by 6.6 million customers. They also delivered resources for 456,000 million pesos in low-value loans to 311,000 people.
«We are working to incorporate the National Guarantee Fund, Bancóldex and Finagro lines to generate greater credit inclusion in the country and in the popular economy,» insisted the manager, who added that for this purpose the work they are doing with Nequi is added, which has already exceeded 14.9 million clients and that only last year past disbursed for more than 344,000 million credits”.
