The Minister for Finance and Treasury, Hon Gordon Darcy Lilo today congratulated the Westpac Bank for reducing its lending rates by up to 2% for a variety of loans effective on 26th September 2011.

Westpac Bank was among the three commercial banks providing financial services to the people of Solomon Islands and was the first bank that took this initiative this year in reducing its lending rates to its customers.

“Westpac bank shows a good example as a way of improving lending activities to individuals and businesses,” Mr Lilo said. “This will encourage Solomon Islands businesses to borrow in order to improve their operations and contribute to economic growth.”

The NCRA government wants to improve access to credit facilities for individuals, small and medium businesses in Solomon Islands as part of its key policies to improve business activities in Solomon Islands.

Reducing Lending Interest rates by Westpac bank is part of what the government wants in order to help stimulate investment and improve credit accessibility for businesses, individual and investors.

Mr Lilo said the National Financial Inclusion Taskforce (NFIT) had also been established to encourage better financial services to citizens.

“The NFIT do have an action plan that consists of the strategies, timeframe and actions that the Taskforce and the responsible stakeholders are required to adopt to achieve the Taskforce objectives and goal. Commercial banks including Westpac Bank were members of the NFIT together with other stakeholders and government representatives ”, Mr Lilo said.