Dream Killer

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.