Loan
FINEB provided a loan per academic year to cover the costs of housing, living expenses and study costs (for example, book money, compulsory study material and tuition fees) for Bonaire students who went to study on Bonaire, Curaçao, Aruba or in the Netherlands.
For LOFO students the loan was intended to cover the costs of the book money and the tuition fees. A LOFO student is defined as a student who follows or has followed a Teacher Training Programme in Basic Education (LOFO, Leraren Opleiding Funderend Onderwijs).
Principal Sum and Additional Loan
The FINEB loan consisted of a Principal Sum with possibly an Additional Loan. This Additional Loan was intended for special expenses of the student. For example, expenses for additional compulsory study material (unforeseen study costs), internship abroad or expenses as a result of travel in connection with serious illness/death of a parent.
The Principal Sum may be partially cancelled. The Additional Loan must be repaid in full in all cases.
Agreement
The FINEB loan was granted based on an agreement between the student and the FINEB. The student signed for agreement to the conditions that were set for the loan. For example, one of the conditions is that the student must pay back the loan.
The General Terms and Conditions and Loan Conditions have been filed with the Registry of the Court of First Instance of the former Netherlands Antilles in Bonaire (2004, 2005, LOFO).
Guarantor
The agreement for the FINEB loan has been entered into under guarantee. This means that not only the student is responsible for the repayment of the loan, but also the guarantor. The guarantor is a person who, in addition to the student, has accepted liability for the repayment of the debt without restrictions! In practice, this person is usually the parent of the student. But this can also be someone else, for example the partner (at the time) of the student.
Repayment in dollars
From January 1st, 2011, the dollar is the legal currency on Bonaire. Therefore, the FINEB loan must be repaid in dollars. Because the loan was paid in Antillean guilders in most cases, RCN-Studiefinanciering converted the student debt into dollars. The official exchange rate (of $1 = NAf 1.79 (NAf 1 = $0.5887) was used.
Did you study in the Netherlands? Then the FINEB, through the Stichting Studiefinanciering Curaçao (SSC), paid the loan out in euros. This student debt has also been converted into dollars. The average annual rates as determined by the Dutch Central Bank were used here. These are the average annual rates in the calendar year in which the relevant academic year started. These rates are listed in the table below.
|
Academic year |
Calendar year |
Euros |
Dollars |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2004-2005 |
2004 |
1.00 |
= |
1.2439 |
|
2005-2006 |
2005 |
1.00 |
= |
1.2441 |
|
2006-2007 |
2006 |
1.00 |
= |
1.2556 |
|
2007-2008 |
2007 |
1.00 |
= |
1.3705 |
|
2008-2009 |
2008 |
1.00 |
= |
1.4708 |
|
2009-2010 |
2009 |
1.00 |
= |
1.3948 |
|
2010-2011 |
2010 |
1.00 |
= |
1.3257 |
|
2011-2012 |
2011 |
1.00 |
= |
1.3920 |