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Seniors' Finance launched South Africa's first home equity
release loan almost 4 years ago. SF HELP has been well received by customers,
there is little doubt that there is demand for properly designed SAHERPA-accredited home equity release loans like SF HELP.
The business model underpinning Seniors' Finance anticipated
using a combination of shareholder funds and institutional credit lines to
finance the issue of SF HELP loans. As a direct result of the international
credit crunch, we have been unable to access the institutional credit lines that
we require, and have thus funded new loan issue entirely out of shareholder
funds to date, which is unfortunately not sustainable.
As a result, we have made the difficult decision to stop
issuing new SF HELP loans until further notice.
The above decision will have no impact on SF HELP loans
already in issue. These loans will continue on a business-as-usual basis. Existing borrowers will continue to receive regular
communication from Seniors' Finance, and are welcome to continue to make contact
with Seniors' Finance as they have in the past. Existing borrowers have nothing
to be concerned about, nothing will change.
Who can predict the future? If institutional credit
markets improve to such an extent that we are able to secure access to the
credit lines that will allow us to implement our business plan, we are confident
that we will then be able to issue new SF HELP loans again. We cannot however predict if
or when this might happen.
We are disappointed that we have had to make this tough
decision. We sincerely thank all stakeholders for their support to date, and
commit to telling you if things improve. We are however committed to our
existing customers, and will continue to give them a reason to smile.....
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