PLDT, CitiFinancial target 5,000 Internet cafés for software financing

MANILA, Philippines, February 28, 2006 – The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and CitiFinancial Corporation have agreed to work together in helping some 5,000 Internet cafes in the country obtain legal software for their businesses.

Under the agreement, CitiFinancial will offer loans of as low as P15,000 to as high as P400,000 with flexible  payment terms from 18 to 36 months.

The loans can be used to purchase originally-licensed software programs used in internet cafes subscribing to PLDT DSL.

“This is our way of assisting our subscribers in obtaining legal software in view of the government’s crackdown on software piracy,” said PLDT Vice President Jonel Ladaban. “Some Internet cafés find that purchasing software with hard cash is a heavy burden. They would definitely benefit from a loan facility such as this.”

According to CitiFinancial Country Manager Kalidas Ghose, their loan facility will offer Internet cafés a most convenient option to invest in licensed software or upgrade their computer units and peripherals.

“We realize that many of the Internet cafés are homegrown businesses and have small working capital. CitiFinancial is prepared to offer easy-on-the-pocket terms for loan amounts as high as P400,000, giving the owners flexibility to earmark the cash for business priorities.”

Initial target areas for the loan facility are Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao. The offer is good only until April 1, 2006.