Commercial Banks still turning down small businesses – Small Business Bureau CEO

Jul 26, 2019 News

During a presentation to a graduation gathering for women who participated in a Women Empowerment Project (WEP), the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Small Business Bureau (SBB), Dr Lowell Porter, said that the Commercial Banks in Guyana are still turning down the applications of small businesses.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Small Business Bureau (SBB), Dr. Lowell Porter

WEP was established by Unicomer Guyana Inc along with Cerulean Inc. The programme stemmed from Unicomer’s Broadening Horizons Customer Service Representative Initiative which was developed to strengthen small businesses in Guyana.
The CEO, Dr Lowell Porter said, “I am happy to see the relationship between big businesses and small businesses. Guyana is a developing country and many times the small businesses here work hard and have good ideas but they don’t have that support.”
“Guyana still has the problem where the Commercial Banks are still declining applications to them. They don’t want to go through that risk to get involved with businesses not existing for more than two years.
According to Dr Porter he believes that these very small businesses can make a change as an entrepreneur only needs an idea to start up their entity.
“Small Business Bureau is a small organization however; with our little budget given by the government we have tried to help many. We can’t help all but we have tried and I have personally seen success in those businesses that we helped,” the CEO said.
The Small Business Bureau (SBB) was established under the Guyana’s Small Business Act (2004) to implement programmes and offer services which address major constraints faced by small businesses – access to finance, business management and technical skills.
They were also put in place to promote policies which foster small business development and monitor small businesses’ access to designated 20% of Government’s procurement of goods and services.

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