Assume that you are an Account Officer of a Microfinance Institution. What will you do if you if the borrower will not be able to pay for their loans based on the following situations?
· The child of the borrower was hospitalized
· Loss of Job
· Devastation due to typhoon
Being an Account Officer of a Microfinance Institution allows me to interact with different individual, most specifically those who were unprivileged in huge opportunities. Despite the works that I still have to accomplish, it will never be a loss for me to have time and talk about life with my client to know their status in life. But what does an Account Officer do? An Account Officer is the one who manages the financial bookkeeping of a business or organization. It is responsible for all the loan approval, applicant eligibility criteria, interviews, monitoring of the borrower’s business to ensure that loan repayment will not be a problem, and sometimes, depending on the bank's policy, the Account officer may do the collection of loan amortizations when they fall due.
As I have mentioned about the works and responsibilities of being an account officer, this job is indeed a tough one as it involves money which makes an individual work until they got plenty of it. If ever I've experience encountering a borrower whose child was hospitalized, I would give her the chance to recover from the bills he/she had during the hospitalization of him/her child by letting him/her do a promissory note excusing him to pay for the said range of time. But this opportunity can only be valid once approved by the heads of the company I am working with and with the use of legal process as well.
But maybe encountering a situation of a borrower who loses his/her job would make me act differently. During the application for a loan, as an Account Officer, I am responsible for assessing the applicant's capability to repay the loan from the scheduled time and ensures if he/she has a secure job. If ever he/she lose his/her job at the time that he's in the process of paying the loan he/she applied for, I may be requiring her to pay regardless of the situation. It is no longer my duty to provide the applicant the opportunity to look for a new job to sustain his/her responsibilities and obligations.
And if ever I have an applicant who came from the devastation due to typhoon, I would give him/her the chance to recover for a bit. We all know how hard it is to battle with natural phenomena and being able to survive is the luckiest thing mankind could ever receive after. This opportunity may be less than others can offer but at least, we showed the love and care we are holding for as what the mission and vision of the company I am working with implies. But all of this can also be possible once approved by the head of the company with the use of legal process.
And last, if ever I will encounter an applicant who slips away from the obligations, he/she seeks during the time when he/ she is in need, I would not be happy and hence decide to proceed with the legal process, although according to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, our Bill of Rights explicitly says that “no person shall be imprisoned for debt or non-payment of a poll tax.” No one could also substitute the payment of debt through imprisonment or other criminal penalties. It is still unjust to broke an agreement and contracts that was sign by both parties. This legal process will not result for the applicant’s imprisonment but it will give the applicant a penalty for not abiding the rules and regulations both parties agreed on during the application.
Thus, all of this opinion can only be possible if the company I am working with approves all the ideas that I will suggest and promote. Working in a company with a friendly environment plus shows concern to the unprivileged individuals is the luckiest thing an employee could experience.
