Keith Duncan, Group CEO of JMMB and Howard Mitchell, head of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ) have come together with a variety of stakeholders in the banking and legislative sector to figure out what is working and to fix what is not working in the area of small business banking. With many banks taking the approach to slap the phrase “business banker” on their sales force that pushes auto loans and credit cards to small businesses, the powers that be recognize that maybe the approach needs to be improved.
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“Our objective from the standpoint of the PSOJ is a just and equal society. We don’t want to be a part of a talk shop. We want to see real change come out of this partnership. The small business sector creates 80% of the jobs in the country and has the least access to credit. The bankers need to understand the small business sector in a way that opens the doors for growth through access to credit.”
Duncan supported this viewpoint by adding, “there are obvious gaps for the Micro, Small and Medium Sized (MSME) sector when it comes to access to financing. There has been a whole policy created around the MSME sector. However, there are challenges. How can we work to improve the entire ecosystem? The bank, the credit unions, the microfinance sector have a role to pay to fine-tune the approach to the small business sector.”
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Of course, the burden of improvement isn’t one-sided. We can’t blame the banks for everything wrong with access to credit. Duncan explained, “How can banks raise their game so that we can meet each other in the middle so financing can be seamless?” And that is the rub. The banks have their part to play and the MSME sector has its role. The challenge is to find a pathway that creates wealth on both sides.
