Sco­tia­bank is now of­fer­ing au­to­mat­ic de­fer­ral, for a pe­ri­od of up to six months, to all its clients who may have loans or cred­it cards pay­ments due to the bank.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease yes­ter­day from the bank, all loans and cred­it cards will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be de­ferred and those want­i­ng to con­tin­ue pay­ing their loans can call Sco­tia to make those arrange­ments, while those want­i­ng to con­tin­ue pay­ing their cred­it cards may do so.

Ac­cord­ing to the press re­lease: “Busi­ness Bank­ing cus­tomers with cred­it cards and Re­tail cus­tomers with cred­it cards, Sco­tia­line, au­to loans and oth­er term loans will now ben­e­fit from an au­to­mat­ic de­fer­ral on pay­ments up to 6 months (ini­tial­ly for 3 months, with a pos­si­ble 3 month ex­ten­sion).”

It added: “For cred­it card cus­tomers who do not wish to par­tic­i­pate in the pay­ment de­fer­ral, you may sim­ply con­tin­ue to make pay­ments—there is no need to con­tact us. Loan cus­tomers who do not wish to par­tic­i­pate in the pay­ment de­fer­ral may con­tact us at 62-SCO­TIA to arrange for reg­u­lar pay­ments to con­tin­ue.”

The bank not­ed that a pay­ment de­fer­ral means that you will not be re­quired to make reg­u­lar pay­ments to your loans (prin­ci­pal, in­ter­est, in­sur­ance pre­mi­um, if ap­plic­a­ble) dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the de­fer­ral.

It said the sud­den fi­nan­cial im­pact of COVID-19 is un­prece­dent­ed, and many of its cus­tomers are un­der­stand­ably con­cerned about their fi­nan­cial well-be­ing dur­ing these chal­leng­ing times.

Sco­tia’s re­lease not­ed that last week it an­nounced that the bank will pro­vide sup­port to cus­tomers with the de­lay of pay­ments on var­i­ous prod­ucts for up to 6 months. Since then it has been work­ing on fi­nan­cial re­lief mea­sures to help with any fi­nan­cial hard­ships that its cus­tomers may be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

Vice Pres­i­dent & Chief Risk Of­fi­cer, Karen Abra­ham com­ment­ed: “The re­lief pro­gram me will ease the fi­nan­cial bur­den of cus­tomers as we cope with the ef­fects of COVID-19.”

She added: ‘For cus­tomers whose pay­ments are de­ferred, in­ter­est on the loan will con­tin­ue to ac­crue, and any loan in­sur­ance pre­mi­ums will still be due, how­ev­er both of these will be payable at a lat­er point in the loan’s term.”

On re­quest, re­tail mort­gage cus­tomers may de­fer pay­ments ini­tial­ly for 3 months, with a pos­si­ble 3 months ex­ten­sion. Karen ad­vis­es, ‘If you choose to de­fer pay­ments on your mort­gage, please con­tact a Sco­tia­bank Fi­nan­cial Ad­vi­sor at 62SCO­TIA’.

Ac­cord­ing to the bank dur­ing the time you de­fer your mort­gage pay­ments, in­ter­est will con­tin­ue to ac­crue on the out­stand­ing bal­ance of the mort­gage start­ing on the date of ac­cep­tance in­to the fi­nan­cial re­lief pro­gramme and will be payable at a lat­er date dur­ing the loan term.

Busi­ness Bank­ing and Com­mer­cial cus­tomers will al­so be able to re­quest loan pay­ment de­fer­ral op­tions, with de­fer­rals of 3 months in the first in­stance with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­ten­sion for a fur­ther 3 months.

Dig­i­tal bank­ing & ATMs

Sco­tia said giv­en the pub­lic health guide­lines around so­cial dis­tanc­ing, it asks cus­tomers to think very care­ful­ly about vis­it­ing its branch­es and re­mind cus­tomers to uti­lize Dig­i­tal Bank­ing and ATMs. Sco­tia On­line Bank­ing and the Sco­tia Caribbean Mo­bile App that al­lows for the pay­ment of bills, trans­fer funds and check ac­count ac­tiv­i­ty 24/7.