Some busi­ness groups be­lieve that they should be in­clud­ed at the ta­ble of for­eign ex­change talks as the short­age has been af­fect­ing their mem­ber­ship for sev­er­al years.

While oth­er cham­bers are of the view these talks should have been put on hold till af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tions.

On Tues­day, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young met with mem­bers of the bank­ing sec­tor at White­hall to dis­cuss the for­eign ex­change is­sues.

In his pre-cur­sor ad­dress to the me­dia, the Prime Min­is­ter said while for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty has been on the de­cline from as far back as 2012, he is es­pe­cial­ly con­cerned about the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of for­eign ex­change for the small man.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so raised con­cerns about ris­ing bank fees par­tic­u­lar­ly as sev­er­al phys­i­cal bank branch­es have been closed.

“The ser­vice charges, of course, have gone up. So, it is re­al­ly to start con­ver­sa­tions along those two lines to as­sure you all that this gov­ern­ment is here to work with you be­cause we all serve the pop­u­la­tion, and that is my con­cern,” Young said.

Pres­i­dent of Pri­vate Phar­ma­cy Busi­ness Cham­ber, Glen­wayne Su­chit, said the for­eign ex­change sup­ply and al­lo­ca­tion are giv­en to se­lect­ed com­pa­nies owned by cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als.

“There ap­pears not to be equal­i­ty and fair play in the dis­tri­b­u­tion...re­sult­ing in medi­um and small com­pa­nies’ busi­ness­es fold­ing up and caus­ing mo­nop­o­lies... food, bev­er­age, al­co­hol, paint, ve­hi­cles, and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals are now con­trolled by a se­lect­ed few pil­fer­ing our lim­it­ed re­sources.

“To com­pound the sit­u­a­tion, banks are de­mand­ing small en­tre­pre­neurs/com­pa­nies/in­di­vid­u­als take a TT-dol­lar loan if they re­quire US dol­lars to pay for­eign sup­pli­ers with high in­ter­est rates which de­crease their prof­itabil­i­ty to sur­vive,” Su­chit be­moaned.  

He called for a seat at the ta­ble to dis­cuss these burn­ing is­sues.

On banks’ in­ter­est rates, Su­chit said it nev­er seems to ad­just down­wards or be ne­go­tiable in any way to ac­com­mo­date in­di­vid­u­als, in­stead in­ter­est rates re­main as is for loans with low­er down-pay­ment and longer re­pay­ment pe­ri­ods to milk the pub­lic as much as pos­si­ble.

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Daphne Bartlett said the Gov­ern­ment has to face up to the banks and tell them to cease these un­fair prac­tices.  

But she not­ed that the ques­tion re­mains why these mat­ters are com­ing to the fore­front on the eve of an elec­tion.

Bartlett said that bank­ing re­form is a crit­i­cal is­sue, but this can be ad­dressed sub­se­quent to the April 28 elec­tions.

On the for­eign ex­change is­sue, Bartlett was even skep­ti­cal. “What will these dis­cus­sions achieve? There is an elec­tion around the cor­ner, and the Prime Min­is­ter must wait un­til the elec­tions are con­clud­ed.”

Samuel George, chair­man of the Gas­par­il­lo Cham­ber, echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments say­ing that all pol­i­cy ac­tions should be put on hold sub­se­quent to the elec­tions and al­so in­clude busi­ness cham­bers to oth­er meet­ings go­ing for­ward.

As it per­tains to the bank charges, George stat­ed that the un­eth­i­cal prac­tices on the part of banks are de­stroy­ing the very fab­ric that is es­sen­tial for busi­ness sur­vival and con­ti­nu­ity.

“The play­ing field is not lev­el, and eco­nom­ic growth has been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed dur­ing the past few decades. Bank charges are es­sen­tial­ly il­le­gal and un­eth­i­cal. Imag­ine one is be­ing charged for de­posit­ing or even with­draw­ing your own mon­ey. This is un­fair and ridicu­lous,” George added.

Al­so weigh­ing in on the is­sue, pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Greater Cham­ber (SFGCC) Ki­ran Singh said traders who com­prise the SME sec­tor have been at odds with the bank­ing sec­tor on ac­cess to forex for busi­ness sur­vival in­clud­ing leisure, va­ca­tion, and study pur­pos­es.  

He high­light­ed cred­it card lim­its have been cut in half from US$10,000 to US$5,000 per card, while new card ap­pli­ca­tions have been fur­ther re­duced to US$2,000 per card. This, he said, cre­ates a fur­ther stran­gle­hold on the cash flow that is des­per­ate­ly need­ed for busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity. The SME sec­tor re­mains large­ly im­port-de­pen­dent for sur­vival.

“Our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this im­por­tant fac­tor of pro­duc­tion can­not be dis­count­ed in the eco­nom­ic dis­cus­sions. Cred­it cards are the on­ly fi­nan­cial tools that can be used for air­line tick­ets, and ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion. In some cas­es, ship­ping and stock pur­chas­es will al­so be de­pen­dent on your cred­it card.  Lim­it­ed ac­cess to forex can di­min­ish the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the small busi­ness,” Singh said.

He al­so ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments that the busi­ness groups should be in­clud­ed in the forex talks.

Speak­ing on the bank­ing fees, Singh said it has been in­creas­ing with lit­tle, or no ex­pla­na­tion, and every ex­pense item re­duces prof­it and the abil­i­ty to pro­vide for ex­pan­sion­ary strate­gies.

Ram­per­sad Sieu­raj, im­me­di­ate past pres­i­dent of the Pe­nal Debe Cham­ber of Com­merce, who was crit­i­cal on the mat­ter, ques­tioned what the for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hillaire were do­ing dur­ing the last nine years when these forex prob­lems were fes­ter­ing.

 He point­ed out that it is a small group who are ac­cess­ing all the forex they want, while the SMEs are left at the mer­cy of the banks.  

“This is not right and some­thing has to give. I can re­mem­ber a for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor who was il­le­gal­ly fired by Im­bert for ex­pos­ing how ram­pant favouritism was tak­ing place re­gard­ing forex dis­tri­b­u­tion,” he said.

A harsh Sieu­raj said that the banks have been car­ry­ing on with these preda­to­ry prac­tices for a very long time, and the time has come to in­sti­tute bank­ing re­form in Trinidad.

“Imag­ine a cus­tomer can­not with­draw any US dol­lars from their US ac­count, pay charges to with­draw funds, ob­tain a cheque book or even a bank state­ment on your ac­count. On top of that, the in­ter­est rate spreads are too wide (de­posit rates vs lend­ing rates) and this is not fair,” he said.

And the Siparia Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Emer­son Ched­die com­mend­ed the fruit­ful dis­cus­sions held be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the banks on the cru­cial mat­ters of re­duc­ing in­ter­est rates and bank­ing charges.  

These ef­forts, Ched­die said, high­light a shared com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing an eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment that ben­e­fits busi­ness­es, con­sumers, and the fi­nan­cial sec­tor alike.

“We ac­knowl­edge the bank’s in­te­gral role in main­tain­ing fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty while sup­port­ing the needs of the broad­er econ­o­my. The di­a­logue un­der­scored the chal­lenges faced by fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions in bal­anc­ing op­er­a­tional costs with the need to pro­vide af­ford­able fi­nan­cial prod­ucts and ser­vices.”

 The head said the Cham­ber of Com­merce is en­cour­aged by the banks’ will­ing­ness to en­gage in open dis­cus­sions and ex­plore so­lu­tions that ad­dress these chal­lenges col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly.  

“We be­lieve that re­duc­ing bank­ing costs, while en­sur­ing the sec­tor’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty, will em­pow­er busi­ness­es—par­tic­u­lar­ly small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (SMEs)—to in­vest, grow, and cre­ate jobs, ul­ti­mate­ly dri­ving eco­nom­ic progress. The Cham­ber stands ready to work along­side the Bank, the gov­ern­ment, and oth­er stake­hold­ers to de­vel­op prac­ti­cal, fair, and sus­tain­able ap­proach­es. To­geth­er, we can achieve a fi­nan­cial ecosys­tem that pro­motes ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, com­pet­i­tive­ness and shared pros­per­i­ty. The cham­ber re­mains com­mit­ted to ad­vo­cat­ing for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty’s in­ter­ests while rec­og­niz­ing the im­por­tance of strong part­ner­ships with the fi­nan­cial sec­tor in build­ing a vi­brant and re­silient econ­o­my for all,” Ched­die added.