WESTMORELAND, Jamaica — Time Value Finance is offering rebuilding loans to business operators who were impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Chief Executive Officer Cosmond Jackson, told the Business Observer that many of their clients were affected by the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus restrictions. He pointed out that as a result these clients were struggling to make payments, and in light of this they have been working closely with each client to see how best they can assist.

“We are not in a repossession mode. We are in a rebuilding mode. So we have not done any repossession since COVID-19. Even though there were people due for repossession before, and COVID is not really the reason for a number of those, we have decided to forego that,” he shared.

He noted that public sector workers and people in distribution, supermarkets and wholesale have remained consistent with their loan payments. However, the decline in their revenues has been tied to those in tourism and other sectors, such as the private sector and auto parts workers.

“We serve a lot of people who are involved in tourism. Like JUTA operators and the small hotels who have loans with us. They totally have no income, so they are not able to service any loans,” he continued.

“We have actually given a number of payment holidays. We have done moratoriums, in terms of rewriting loans and restructuring and some total holidays for people who just can’t make any payment. We have been liaising with them and extending, while hoping that something will happen because it is beyond their control.

“We are also trying to work with businesses; we are hopeful. We are working with some people, trying to encourage some of them to re-engineer their business to see if there are any other avenues they can get money from,” Jackson stated.

“There are some who were shuttered for a while. Some of them have reopened and we have now extended further loans to them and reduced their interest rates significantly as a humanitarian effort.”

The company has three locations islandwide, with two branches in Westmoreland and one in Mandeville.

Two additional locations were slated to open in April, however, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has delayed this operation. Currently, only one of the two branches in Westmoreland and the Mandeville location are opened for business.

“We have not laid off any staff. The management team and directors met and we have agreed to take a 32 per cent reduction in our income, and we are rotating the line staff. “So even though we closed one of our branches since April, everybody is still getting some income,” Jackson revealed.

Jackson reported that while the remittance (Money Gram) side of the business remained consistent, the company reported significant losses. He said that since April the cambio revenue decreased by 95 per cent and revenue from loans by over 66 per cent.

“Things returning to normal has a lot to do with what is happening in North America. Because unless things come to some kind of normalcy there then we will not benefit here.

“Jamaica’s economy is tourism which is supported mainly by North America, and our exports are also mainly to North America.”

Time Value Finance has been in operation for 18 years and offers cambio, remittance and microfinance services to clients. Jackson stated that this is the very first they have seen this kind of reduction in revenue.

“April’s gross revenue was 35 per cent of what it was in February.

“Thankfully, my father always told me to save for a rainy day. So when we were making money we didn’t squander it. We try not to overexert ourselves. So currently we don’t have a cash flow problem. We should be okay for the next six months because of the way we operated before.”

Jackson indicated that they will be moving forward with opening the new locations as soon as it is plausible, and the company is hopeful that with this new strategy to re-engineer their business clients the situation will improve in the near future.