The group, which has, over the years, carved out a niche to bank and lend to low-turnover businesses that bigger banks do not ordinarily service, has a hands-on approach when it comes to servicing its clients. As such, from initial interactions, the bank is quite confident that both its operations and those of its clients will be okay, said CEO Michael Sassoon.

“But businesses that require credit to keep their doors open, or at the very least to manage liquidity of their cash flows in the coming months, we’ll assess those on a case-by-case basis. And we are willing to engage with clients if we are confident that the client can absolutely weather the storm and recover,” said Sassoon.

He said the bank would do what it could to manoeuvre within the regulatory framework and within sound business and governance principles.

Sassoon said Sasfin was obviously concerned about the state of SMEs in the face of Covid-19, and he was hoping that government would announce some sort of intervention to help small businesses.

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