The secret to growing your business
Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often see business loans as a last resort when facing significant challenges. Sometimes, they would dip into their savings or borrow from family and friends to finance their business needs. But most people do not know, loans are a helpful tool that may provide the necessary support and leverage to overcome difficulties, and propel their ventures forward.
Business loans from banks may offer unique benefits and advantages for entrepreneurs that may serve as an accelerant in unlocking business growth. These include:
Access to more funding: Banks can provide larger loan amounts than most individuals. If your business needs a significant infusion of capital for growth or expansion, a bank loan may be suited to meet your financial requirements.
Keeping your personal funds intact: Using bank loans allows you to preserve your savings for individual or family emergencies or financial goals. By separating business and personal finances, you mitigate the risk of depleting your funds to ensure a safety net for yourself or your loved ones.
Maintaining personal relationships: Building a business is hard enough. The last thing you need is a stressful personal life. Borrowing from family and friends may possible strain relationships and create emotional tensions. Bank loans are professional arrangements with clear terms, interest rates, and repayment schedules.
Building a strong credit history: Taking out and repaying bank loans helps create a positive credit history for your business, which is important for establishing credibility and opening doors to future financial opportunities.
Managing the cost of money: Bank loans often allow you to access large amounts with more structured payment terms than credit cards or other solutions. By enabling you to plan for the overall interest expenses, bank loans are reasonable for your business. Due to their flexible and open-ended nature, credit card payments make accumulating debt easy, resulting in higher interest costs if not managed properly.
However, you may not get to experience these benefits without the right bank committed to supporting you throughout your entrepreneurial journey. The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), which has helped empower the success of generations of Filipino entrepreneurs for over a hundred years, recently reinforced its commitment to help SMEs address their pressing business challenges and take advantage of unique growth opportunities with its newest Ka-Negosyo business loans.
"With our BPI Business Banking offerings, we are giving SMEs a helping hand by providing madali, magaan, and mabilis (easy, convenient, and fast) financing solutions, and relevant advice and assistance throughout their journey to realize their plans, overcome their challenges, and strive for bigger achievements," Ococ Ocliasa, BPI Head of Business Banking, said.
BPI's array of Ka-Negosyo products is designed to help respond to SMEs' needs, such as:
Funding seasonal requirements. Whether you are a retail brand anticipating a peak season in the "-ber" months or an agribusiness getting ready for planting or harvest season, there are times in the year when you just need to make left and right investments in logistics or inventory, among other things. BPI designed its Ka-Negosyo Ready Loan to help support these cyclical funding needs. With a short repayment period, you may take advantage of all the opportunities during peak months.
Financing recurring expenses. Managing recurring business expenses such as inventory, supplies, wages, utilities, and other operational costs may be supported by BPI's Ka-Negosyo Credit Line (KCL), which serves as an extended wallet that a businessowner may use to seize opportunities at any given time, without touching your savings or disrupting your cash flow.
Making big bets and investments. Sometimes, massive business growth lies at the other end of ambitious investments in new equipment, technology, research, product development, or other capital expenditures. BPI's Ka-Negosyo SME Loan (KSL) makes these big bets easy and accessible with its long repayment period.
If you are looking into even bigger investments—properties, such as a warehouse for your products, office space for your team, or real estate for rental income—KSL has an option for a Property Acquisition Loan (PAL) with long repayment period from 10 years to 20 years for the acquisition, construction, or renovation of properties for business use.
You may access these loans wherever you are through Ka-Negosyo on the Go, BPI's new online loan application platform for SMEs. It features an intuitive product finder that guides you in selecting the Ka-Negosyo Loan that fits your needs, evaluates how much interest you need to pay to meet your financial capacities, determines your eligibility, and even apply and submit requirements anytime and anywhere without the need to visit a branch. You may finish the application in just one sitting if you have digital copies of your business documents. You even have the flexibility to avail of these loans with or without collateral, depending on what you deem is right for your business.
Once you have completed your requirements, BPI's team will contact you on the next steps, ensuring that you are well taken care of during your loan application. Once approved, your loan will be accessible in only a few days.
If you are ready to reach new heights and grow your business, head to www.bpi.com.ph/sme-banking.
