Nepal Investment Bank Ltd (NIBL), together with Nepal Army Welfare Board (NAWB), will soon launch a low-cost housing loan scheme, ‘Ati Sulav Ghar Karja’ as a deprived sector lending (DSL) initiative to support earthquake victims to reconstruct their houses.

Through this facility, victims from 14 earthquake affected districts will be able to avail a loan amount of up to Rs 400,000 at subsidized interest rate of 4.5 per cent per annum with a flexible repayment facility, as per a statement issued today.

As a part of DSL initiative, NIBL along with NAWB held special programmes at Nuwakot, Dhading, Sindhupalchowk, Kavre, Ramechhap, Dolakha, Sindhuli, Chitwan, Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur from June 24 to July 6 with an aim to upgrade the living standard and create self-employment opportunities for retired Nepal Army staff.

During the programmes, NIBL CEO Jyoti Prakash Pandey and Nepali Army Chief Gaurav SJB Rana jointly handed cheques to 90 entrepreneurs, as per the press statement reports The Himalayan Times.

NIBL started deprived sector lending with loan of Rs 88.3 million in mid-western, Rs 58.3 million in far-western, Rs 219.6 million in western, Rs 198.8 million in central and Rs 165.9 million in eastern regions of the country and has till date disbursed Rs 731.1 million in loans to 5,511 ex-army personnel.

NIBL has over 617,000 customers being serviced from 46 branches and 14 branchless banking locations. NIBL ATM network is comprised of 82 ATMs and over 500,000 cardholders. As of mid-April, NIBL had a deposit base of Rs 81.16 billion and loan and advances of Rs 66.14 billion.

NIBL is the only Nepali bank to have been conferred with four ‘Bank of the Year’ awards and has also received ICRA Nepal credit rating ‘A’.