MANILA–The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has announced the rediscount rates applicable on loan availments by banking institutions for January.

For loans under the Peso Rediscount Facility, the BSP Peso Rediscount Rate is set at 4.0 percent per annum for all maturities effective February 1, 2010. The Peso Rediscount Rate is based on the applicable BSP overnight reverse repurchase rate per Circular No. 679 dated February 1, 2010.

Meanwhile, for loans under the Exporters Dollar and Yen Rediscount Facility (EDYRF), the rates for the month of January are as follows:

Dollar—0.26063 percent p.a.
Yen—0.12625 percent p.a.

The EDYRF rediscount rates are based on the respective London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) for the last working day of December 2010.

The BSP also announced the level of availments of rediscounting loans from January 1 to December 31 last year.

Under the Peso Rediscount Facility, total availments of commercial, thrift and rural banks amounted to P49,764 million, 72.7 percent lower than the P182,466 million total in the same period last year.

Out of the P49,764 million availments, 54.3 percent went to commercial credits, 5.9 percent to agricultural and industrial credits, and 39.8 percent to other credits consisting of other services (25.6 percent), CAPEX (8.4 percent), permanent working capital (3.2 percent), housing (2.6 percent) and microfinance (less than 0.1 percent).

The P49,764 million availments under the Peso Rediscount Facility exclude the P9 million rediscounting loans granted to micro, small and medium enterprises (mSMEs) affected by tropical storms “Ondoy” and “Pepeng”. It will be recalled that the BSP established an additional P5,000 million budget for rediscounting to provide assistance for typhoon-affected mSMEs.

Under the EDYRF, aggregate dollar availments of seven commercial banks for the period 01 January to 31 December 2010 amounted to US$84.5 million benefiting 29 exporters. A total of US$55 million was granted for the period January to December 2009, or a 53.6 percent increase in availments under the EDYRF in the same period this year.

On the other hand, there was no Yen-denominated availment under the EDYRF for the period January to December 2010.