CITY OF SAN FERNANDO --- The Social Security System (SSS) in Luzon is offering loans for its members and pensioners to meet their immediate or short-term credit needs.
The SSS said on Wednesday that salary and pension loans are being granted to employed, currently paying --- self-employed or voluntary members and pensioners --- on easy schemes.
The salary loan program or SLP gives a qualified member the option to avail of a one-month salary loan which is equivalent to the average of his or her latest posted 12 monthly salary credits.
The member must have 36 posted monthly contributions, six of which should be within the last 12 months prior to the month of filing of application.
Another option is the two-month salary loan which is equivalent to twice the average of the member-borrower's latest posted 12 monthly salary credits, rounded to the next higher monthly salary credit. He or she must have 72 posted monthly contributions, six of which should be within the last 12 months prior to the month of filing of application.
An important prerequisite before a member can proceed with the application for a salary loan is a bank account where the cash will be credited.
The loan shall be charged an interest rate of 10 percent per annum based on diminishing principal balance, and shall be amortized over a period of 24 months.
The SSS said members who want to avail of the loan program may do so by logging in their My.SSS accounts at https://member.sss.gov.ph/. and click on the ‘Loans’ tab, then choose 'Salary Loan'.
Pensioners 85 years of age or below at the end of the last month of the loan term and have no deductions such as outstanding loan balance may avail of pension loans.
The pension loans program allows qualified retiree-pensioners to avail of a loan of up to three or six times their basic monthly pension plus the P1,000 additional benefit.
These have payment terms of six and 12 months, respectively.
To qualify, the pensioner must have no existing advance pension under the SSS Calamity Assistance Package, and must be receiving their regular monthly pension for at least one month with an ‘active’ status.
Pensioners may also avail of nine or 12 times their basic monthly pension plus the P1,000 additional benefit, but not to exceed the maximum loan amount of P200,000. These have a payment term of 24 months.
A pension loan has an interest rate of 10 percent per annum.
The agency said that pensioners who wish to avail of a loan may submit their applications online through the SSS website.