Action coming to protect consumers from high interest rates

Government will be stepping in to protect Barbadian businesses and individuals against unfair and excessive interest rates charged by local lending institutions.

That promise has come from Minister of Energy and Business Development Kerrie Symmonds who accused some financial institutions of preying on persons facing severe financial difficulties.

Speaking at the launch of the Barbados Trust Fund Limited (BTFL) online discussion series, Let’s Talk Entrepreneurship on Monday, he acknowledged that financial obligations for any start-up can be taxing. However, he said, many small businesses are often caught up in a web of increasing debt resulting from heavy interest rates at large lending agencies.

“I am equally keen for us to have the conversation about the way in which we deal with debt in this country, because it is one of the nooses that are being wrapped around the neck of entrepreneurial endeavour in Barbados, and stifling the life of entrepreneurship. Debt can prove to be disastrous for those people who are embarking on an entrepreneurial journey,” he said.

“But yet, we have a country in which there are people who are offering loans at 30-something per cent interest rates, and we have young people going into business and fuelling that business with a credit card and that credit card is being paid back at 20-somebody per cent interest rates.”

Minister Symmonds said the present administration plans to intervene soon at the legislative level to deal with the exorbitant interest rates being levied against start-ups and Barbadians, who have for far too long, in his opinion, been dealing with a sector that preys on persons facing severe financial difficulties.

“I want people to understand when the time comes, and it will come shortly as I say to you, that we will have to have a conversation with those people involved in lending in Barbados, in order to rein in some of the loan sharking that is taking place in business places of high finance because we are disadvantaging a community and making it impossible for them to exist in this country.” (SB)