LankaBangla gets $15m foreign loan

​LankaBangla Finance has received a foreign loan of $15 million from Luxembourg-based BlueOrchard Microfinance Fund.

The loan proceeds will meet financing needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and green and sustainable projects such that hardships stemming from the coronavirus pandemic can be smoothly overcome. 

Switzerland-based impact fund manager BlueOrchard Finance and Green Delta Capital made the arrangements last month.

The Green Delta is also acting as the security agent on behalf of BlueOrchard Microfinance Fund in this transaction.

This is the second cross border debt transaction for LankaBangla.

The non-bank financial institution received its maiden foreign loan in 2019 from the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector.

BlueOrchard seeks to contribute to economic, environmental and social development and to improve access to financial services to those at the bottom of the pyramid as well as SMEs, mainly in emerging markets.

This is its first transaction in the Bangladesh market and with a Bangladeshi recipient.

Normunds Mizis, chief credit officer of BlueOrchard Finance, said it would give a boost to the SME sector in Bangladesh.

Khwaja Shahriar, managing director of LankaBangla, said obtaining foreign currency loans was a part of the NBFI's corporate strategy to widen the borrowing mix, which would definitely help it arrest the cost of funds to some extent.

"As we received the fund at a competitive rate of interest, we will be able to shift the same benefit to our end-clients, especially SMEs and emerging sectors," he said. 

Md Rafiqul Islam, managing director of Green Delta Capital, said such investments would help unlock more foreign financing in Bangladesh.   

Source: ​thedailystar