RHB Banking Group, Malaysia’s fourth-largest fully integrated financial services provider, has no problem in providing housing loans to blacklisted National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) loan borrowers.

Group retail banking acting head Nazri Othman said the bank had already done so even before the government announced the relaxation on the borrowers listed in the country’s credit reference system recently.

“If they (the blacklisted borrowers) are able to restructure and convinced us that they already have a repayment structure with PTPTN, we will consider. We are already accommodating that kind of situation,” he told reporters after handing the prizes to RHB Deposit Gold Campaign winners here today.

He said there was no reason for the bank to refuse giving housing loans to PTPTN borrowers who were committed to repaying their loans with a proper repayment schedule.

“They may have had difficulties to repay earlier but now they are able to restructure their repayments. So we will consider them and give them the lifeline to apply for loan facilities.

“It doesn’t mean that by having a problem (in repaying) earlier, they would continue to have that problem forever,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nazri said the RHB Deposit Gold Campaign, held from Oct 18 last year to Feb 28 this year, garnered more than RM500 million deposits for RHB.

“In the first quarter of 2019, RHB recorded a strong growth in deposits of 14.3 per cent year-on-year, demonstrating strong customer confidence and trust in the bank,” he said.

He said following the positive response from customers to the campaign, RHB had launched another RHB Deposit Gold 3 Campaign which is running from July 1 until Dec 31 this year. The bank is also doubling the prize value for the winners.

He added that it would also launch the RHB CASA Travel Campaign 2 in the third quarter of this year.

Yesterday, Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said banks would have the final say on whether to approve housing loan applications for blacklisted PTPTN borrowers.

She said this was despite the government’s move to exempt PTPTN borrowers named in the Central Credit Reference Information System from being blacklisted by banks.