RIC reaches $1 billion loans approved milestone

The Regional Investment Corporation (RIC) has now approved $1 billion-worth of loan applications as it endeavours to boost processing times.

CEO Bruce King said the RIC’s credit team had worked hard to reach the milestone.

“Progressing loan applications in a timely manner has been an ongoing challenge for the RIC due to the demand, particularly from drought-affected farmers,” he said.

“Reaching $1 billion in approved loans is both testament to the volume of applications RIC staff have processed and the scale of that demand.

“We have been steadily increasing our loan handling capacity through additional team members and process improvements.

“We are handling many more loan applications today that what we were at the beginning of the year, and certainly when the RIC started just over two years ago.”

The news follows the Federal Government’s announcement in July 2020, allocating another $2 billion to fund future Drought and AgBiz Drought loans this financial year.

“This means we’re going to be able to build a stronger regional Australia by providing assistance to farmers growing and improving their operations, as well as drought-affected farmers and farm-related small businesses,” Mr King said.

“It’s been fantastic to see the rainfall across NSW recently, but we know there are areas still in drought, such as southwestern NSW, north west Queensland and in parts of Western Australia.

It’s important farmers and graziers in those areas know that just because they haven’t been in drought for two years, doesn’t mean they can’t access a RIC loan and we really encourage them to look at whether they’re eligible for products.”

The Drought and AgBiz Drought loans currently offer two-year interest-free terms for completed applications received by 30 September 2020.

After 30 September 2020, both drought loans will offer five-year interest-only periods followed by five years of principal and interest repayments.

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