PM laments wait for bank accounts hurting entrepreneurs
By Marlon Madden
Prime Minister Mia Mottley is concerned that the length of time it takes to open a bank account in Barbados is negatively impacting some Barbadians and even killing entrepreneurs’ dreams of establishing a business.
“That cannot be acceptable in 21st-century Barbados,” she insisted on Wednesday as she said it was “inconceivable” that people were facing such significant delays.
Speaking at the renaming ceremony of the iconic and historic Mutual Building, which now houses the University of the West Indies’ city campus on Lower Broad Street, Bridgetown, Mottley said that with the opportunity to use digital technology, “we should be making the hugest difference in the length of time that people take in order to open accounts or to have transactions completed”.
She lamented that having to wait weeks to have an account opened, after being asked to present certain information, was resulting in “dreams exploding or possibly, at best, deferred”.
“We accept that some of the issues relate to the validation of identity, and that is why the Government has invested significant sums in the national digital ID because we must be able to level the playing field with respect to access for all of our citizens,” the Prime Minister said.
“We need to be able to ensure that we can deal with it in a way that also allows companies wanting to establish in this country, institutions wanting to establish in this country, [not to] be subject to two and three months’ wait.”
Her comments came exactly a month after President of the Barbados Consumer Empowerment Network (BCEN) Maureen Holder urged commercial banks to remove “onerous and unnecessary policies and regulations” for opening, closing or reactivating accounts.
The consumer advocate had accused banks of using anti-money laundering and compliance risk management rules as “an excuse”.
Noting that the global environment has not been favourable for many, especially since the 2007/2008 global recession, and that some international organisations continued to impose sanctions that were negatively impacting smaller jurisdictions such as Barbados and the rest of the region, Prime Minister Mottley said it was about time that the financial services and banking sector come up with solutions.
“The reality is that we use those same reasons to justify the almost retardation of actions within the banking systems and engaging with our local populations,” she contended, adding that the rules people in the region believed were being foisted on the banking system by the international agencies and by extension customers, were “like a tonne of concrete”.
Mottley said the time had come for a more “ethical and purpose-driven approach” to ensure that people are not excluded from the banking sector.
“We have been speaking about the absence of fairness and transparency with respect to the management of our banking relations, globally and here. The manner in which correspondent banking has been taken from too many of our colleagues within this region is unacceptable,” she said.
“The reality is that we cannot have financial pariahs and lepers within our society who are excluded from the banking system. We are in this position largely because we are too small for people to think outside of the box and for it to matter to them how they treat and operate with us.”
The Prime Minister also reiterated her call for Barbadians to invest instead of leaving their money in the bank “sitting down” and not earning a return.
She said the Government would continue to aggressively pursue financial literacy training for residents, “recognising that the average Barbadian household must come to be able to determine where and how it wants to invest its money for the best return”.
“What matters is that we have a far more aggressive approach to how we manage our savings and our investments, recognising that ownership does in fact matter,” Mottley said.
She also promised those gathered at the ceremony at which The Dodridge Miller Economic and Justice Building was named, that making digital payment systems a norm in Barbados was high on the agenda of the Government.
In fact, lauding Sagicor for establishing the first digital bank in Barbados, Mottley said, “I believe it is going to be the way of the future, and I believe that the fact that we now have a generation of young people who do not know what a cheque book looks like tells you that is in truth and in fact, the way of the future.”
“…. It has taken longer than we would have liked largely because of COVID, but the Government is moving to a platform that will allow digital payments to be the norm rather than the exception. It is going to mean, therefore, that our efforts with respect to cyber security, with respect to validation, are going to be absolutely critical because we are operating now in a different ecosystem,” added the Prime Minister.
She said the Ministry of Finance would collaborate with the Government Information Service to ensure public education on the matter and “lead the way in being able to bring the majority, if not, all of our people on this platform”.
