Last week the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Guyana Bankers Association (GBA) organized a forum to discuss with the local business community the various services which commercial banks can provide that offer an alternative to cash transactions. It is, of course, altogether unnecessary to detail the particular advantages associated with those services given what, these days, is the constant preoccupation of the business community with what has become the high probability of armed robbery.
In fact one wonders why such an initiative has come so late in the day given the plethora of robberies that have occurred over the last seven years or so and the unknown number of millions that have been carted off by bandits – sometimes, regrettably, with attendant loss of life.
More perplexing – if last week’s forum is anything to go by – one wonders just how serious the business community is about rendering their business transactions safer by embracing the technological possibilities that are now available through the commercial banking sector.
One would have thought, for example, that the presence of the various chief executives of both the business community and the banking sector would have added a dimension of greater seriousness to the forum and allowed for a level of discourse – and perhaps even decision-making – which lower-ranking functionaries – for all their arguably greater competence in some of the issues that were discussed – are simply not in a position to facilitate.
This newspaper was present through much of the forum and recognized no chief executives of any of the major business houses, The same was true for the commercial banks – save and except the CEO of Republic Bank who was wearing his hat as Head of the Bankers Association.
And while the discussions were lively –embracing issues like mobile banking and the need to have supporting legislation among others – there were aspects of the forum – like the refusal of business representatives to engage in any serious discussion about the present limited use of the “no cash” services currently being offered by commercial banks and the unfathomable decision by the representatives of the commercial banks present not to make any kind of presentation whatsoever to the forum – that were, quite simply, disappointing.
There is a school of thought – and this arose during small group discourses over the coffee break – that suggests that given the nature of the Guyana economy, transactions that allow for transparency and which generate strict records can, in some cases, be discomfiting, to say the least. But even if transparency and records that allow for traceability are not everyone’s cup of tea, surely, that leaves a number of established businesses which, presumably, are entirely comfortable with transparency and transaction records and which would have an interest in embracing those services as a means of safeguarding themselves against robberies that result in huge financial losses as well as – on occasion – loss of life.
There is, of course, a particular need for transactions that circumvent the handling and movement of large quantities in the mining sector where the movement of large sums of cash over long distances is prevalent. In fact, it is significant that last week’s forum coincides with yet another round of discourse on the decentralization of the commercial banking sector to embrace interior regions. The initial response from the banks has been that such a development has to be preceded by the necessary feasibility studies which will take account of, among things, issues of viability and security.
For all its disappointments, it appears that last week’s forum has resulted in a commitment on the parts of the GCCI and the GBA that they will continue to collaborate on seeking to increase the volume of ‘no-cash’ transactions in the business sector; and if that commitment can be translated into further educating the business community on the virtues of these banking services and a structured and sustained lobby for legislation designed to bring about increased use of those services, that will be a step forward.
