With the coronavirus declared a state of disaster in South Africa, all of us are now experiencing the effects of this pandemic in our daily lives.
As a small business owner, this is a difficult time.
You’re worried about more than your family’s safety and your own livelihood.
Like you, I’ve been thinking carefully about how best to protect the health of my employees. I’ve also been thinking about the future of the business we’re building together.
We know we need to act decisively, and we need to act fast.
My team and I have worked together to come up with a response to the crisis, and I wanted to share this with you in the hope that it helps with your planning in these unprecedented times.
Your success is still our number one priority
Your business is important to us. Our mission is to give South African SMEs the funding they need to manage cash flow and grow.
That mission is now more important than ever, and we remain laser-focused on achieving this. We’ll continue to make it easy to access business funding. You can still apply online in minutes and get your funding in 24 hours. If your business is being hampered by the coronavirus, tell us during your application. We’ve set up a task team to accelerate all applications from SMEs that are affected by the outbreak.
We’ll be watching our expenses
To prepare for a potentially challenging economic environment, we’ll be managing our finances even more closely. This means we are trimming costs where necessary.
Our remote workforce is ready to help you
After President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address on Sunday evening, we asked all staff to work from home. We’ll be assisting employees who aren’t yet set up to work from home. Because we’re a technology company, we’re able to serve you no matter where we are.
We’re testing business scenarios in an uncertain environment
The outbreak of COVID-19 takes us into uncharted territory. Are our current plans still sensible in a changing economy? Do we need to revise our approach? How will our finances be impacted? We’re asking these questions to help us better prepare for potential scenarios and put contingency plans in place.
Our business, and yours, will be impacted by this outbreak. We hope that the situation will improve fast. But right now, we’re not sure how long this will last.
My hope for my business and yours is that we emerge from this moment healthy, stronger than ever, and ready to refocus our efforts on growing our businesses.
