Standard Chartered loans Philippine bank CARD $1.62 M

Standard Chartered Plc. has agreed to lend Philippines-based Card Bank P75 million, or about $1.62 million.

This is the first microfinance loan of the British bank in Southeast Asia, according to a Bloomberg report.  

CARD will use the money to open more branches, benefitting farmers and rural industries linked to its 360,000 borrowers, Standard Chartered said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday.  

"There's a vast opportunity in the region to support microfinance institutions," Prashant Thakker, the London-based bank’s global head of microfinance, said in the statement.

Standard Chartered has pledged to provide development organisations with $500 million of credit to fund microfinance institutions in Asia and Africa by 2011, according to the statement.

Microfinance is the provision of small loans to low-income people to spur entrepreneurship.

View the report in Bloomberg.