In light of the current uncertainty in the economic climate, the Sarnia-Lambton Business Development Corporation is allowing existing loan clients to defer their loan payments for three months.
General Manager Don Anderson said clients have up to May 31 to exercise the option.
"What we're looking at is the opportunity for our clients to preserve their existing working capital and cash flow because, who knows what's happening. We're certainly seeing things are slowing down in the hospitality industry as people start taking up social distancing, so we have concerns and I'm sure our clients have concerns as well," said Anderson. "So our thought is, here's one less obligation you have to worry about in the short-term, if we can defer your loan payments out three months until the situation is hopefully more stabilized."
Anderson said the offer includes both principal and interest loan payments.
He said if clients don't see the need for the offer right away and all of a sudden it starts to affect them more in April or May, they still have an opportunity to take advantage of this.
"There may be situations where clients have the need to compensate staff for working from home, there may be other needs where sales volumes are going to decline a little bit, so they don't have the same cash flowing through the business that they would normally have."
Anderson said SLBDC currently has just under 100 clients.