In circumstances where small businesses in Guyana are still not exactly ‘going wild’ over the extent to which their growth ambitions are receiving sufficiently energetic backing from the country’s ‘high profile’ commercial banks in pursuit of the growth of their businesses, their counterpart Small Business Enterprise [SME’s] in Trinidad and Tobago would appear to be ‘singing a different tune.’ A November 18 article published in the Trinidad Guardian (Local Banks Getting Behind SME’s) reports that Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) are singing the praises of the country’s commercial banks which are reportedly generously ‘shelling out’ in an effort to help their businesses grow.
A report on a recent SME Marketplace (Trinidad Guardian, Sunday December 19) alludes to instances of timely interventions by Republic Bank to help T&T small businesses grow to a point of making a mark on competitive international markets. The article cites the case of the T&T e-commerce operation, Golden Rootz Ltd. (which exports herbs and spices naturally grown in Trinidad) whose present “strong international presence in the US and the UK with its sights set to enter other markets such as Europe” is due to the support that it has received from Republic Bank TT. Golden Rootz Ltd., attributes its entrepreneurial breakthrough largely to the intervention of Republic Bank TT which, the company’s owner, Myckiel Haynes is quoted as saying.
The Bank, he says, helped in the pursuit of the scaling up of his business through a crucial intervention that enabled the acquisition of a piece of manufacturing inventory that cost $TT40, 000.00. “The bank helped us get our machinery and they are even there to support us to get future machinery to carry the business to another level”, the Guardian article quotes Haynes as saying. Golden Rootz Ltd., reportedly markets its products “on platforms such as Amazon, Ebay, Walmart and mytrinishop.com.” Its free-dried ‘offerings’ include various Caribbean fruit, herbs and spices. The Guardian article also cites the case of another TT businessman, Balraj Basdeo, whose ‘skincare items and Unique Candles’ have found their way onto the international market with the support of Republic Bank TT.
Regional agro produce including sorrel, pimento, scorpion pepper and Chadon Beni are reportedly on a list of agro exports from TT in the “freeze dry form,” the success of the venture attributable to the intervention of the country’s banking sector, Basdeo is quoted as saying in The Guardian article. Meanwhile, the “the Bank teaches you how to go about the dynamics of a small business, which he says, is also important.” Over time, the small business community in Guyana has not been anywhere nearly as generous in their assessment of the extent to which the local banking sector has aided their efforts to provide its (small and medium-sized) businesses with commensurate financial backing.
Owners of local small businesses with whom the Stabroek Business has spoken with over several years, have charged commercial banks in Guyana with ‘profiling’ them/their businesses during the course of interaction pertaining to negotiating loans. Some of them have related instances in which they say they have felt that their worthwhileness for access to borrowing had to do with what one business owner described as “superficial” considerations, including manner of dress and a capacity to speak what he described as “the language of business”, during interactions with Bank officials. One West Coast Demerara small business owner with whom the Stabroek Business spoke with said that during the course of loan-related interviews with Banks, potential borrowers are made to feel as though they do not know enough about the “banking culture” to be “trusted” with bank loans.
Back in 2018, the then head of the state-run Small Business Bureau, Dr. Lowell Porter, was quoted in a section of the media as saying that despite having “less than half per cent delinquency in loan repayments, nonetheless, a significant amount of loan applications by small businesses continued to be rejected”. Contextually, when the Stabroek Business spoke recently with a few small business owners participating in this year’s GUYEXPO event, they asserted that local small businesses continue to be confronted with challenges (which one interviewee described as “class prejudice”) when engaging commercial banks on loan applications. “Limited financial history” is reportedly among the critical criteria reportedly used by the local banking sector as a basis for turning down small business loan applications.
Accordingly, some loan applicants experience difficulties in their efforts to realize what the banking sector regards as ‘credible financial records’, including adequate cash flow. In June this year, government signed an agreement with the Small Business Development Finance Trust (SBDF) under which government committed to providing loans at “concessional” rates to small and micro enterprises in sectors that include agriculture, the retail trade and manufacturing. The Stabroek Business has been unable to secure reliable information on the response of small business owners to the advent of the SBDF.
