Twenty Thousand Applications. How Will the Development Bank Process Them?

Oct 25, 2026 News

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By Dr. Karen Abrams, MBA AA

(Kaieteur News) – When President Ali announced that an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 persons had applied to the Guyana Development Bank, I immediately thought about the staff who would have to process them. The Department of Public Information reported on October 20 that applications were already being evaluated and grouped according to the sectors applicants wanted to enter. Twenty thousand applications! I could almost picture the person opening that dashboard on Monday morning. Where do you even begin?

The President spoke about the ease of applying online, without joining a physical line. That is certainly an improvement. People can apply from home instead of spending money on transportation and losing a day’s work. News Room also reported that most of the assessment and approval process would be handled digitally, with interviews and background checks before approved funds are deposited into applicants’ accounts. But the convenience of submitting an application does not tell us how quickly someone can properly review it.

I suppose the online form feeds into a dashboard where an officer clicks on someone’s name, opens the application and begins checking. Hopefully, the system identifies missing documents and asks applicants to complete their submissions before those files reach an analyst. Otherwise, imagine opening application after application only to discover that a business plan, identification document or important financial information is missing. Someone then has to contact the applicant, explain the problem and return to the file later. Multiply that by several thousand people.

Let us put some numbers to the work. Suppose each application takes one hour to review. That is an illustration, because some might take less time and others considerably more. Twenty thousand applications would require 20,000 hours. A team of five, each spending six hours a day reviewing applications, would need approximately 667 working days (2.7 years). A team of twenty would need about 167. That does not include time spent interviewing applicants, checking information or seeking approval. Even processing 5,000 applications would be a substantial undertaking.

I have not noticed any advertisements for credit analysts from the GDB, so I am unsure how the staffing compares with the volume of applications. Perhaps the team is already in place. But anyone who has managed an office knows how quickly work piles up when new requests arrive faster than existing ones can be completed. Applicants will understandably want updates, and the same people reviewing files may find themselves answering calls about when those files will be reviewed.

There is another critical issue which must be considered. Many applicants will want to sell products and services already available in their communities. Think about a small town where several shops are already competing for the same customers. Financing another twenty shops does not automatically create twenty shops’ worth of new spending. Something similar could happen with poultry farming, food businesses or transportation. New competition can bring better prices and service, but if too many businesses enter a market with too few buyers, several may struggle, including those that were there before. This concern is probably already being discussed by the various chambers of commerce in Guyana.

The review therefore has to go beyond whether the idea sounds good and the documents are attached. Who will buy the product? How many other businesses are selling it nearby? Is the applicant offering something different, reaching new customers or simply hoping to capture customers from someone else? These are questions a business owner should consider, and they become especially important when taxpayers are financing the loans. A person can work very hard and still lose money because there were never enough customers to support the business.

This is where artificial intelligence could help. An AI system could review submissions, identify completed applications, summarise business plans and group similar proposals. Instead of an analyst discovering, one file at a time, that fifty people in the same area want to open similar businesses, the system could flag that concentration early. It could also compare proposals with available information about existing businesses, helping analysts ask better questions. The quality of that comparison would depend on the information available, but it would give the team a useful starting point.

Of course, applicants would be handing over private financial information and business ideas. Companies like Kindo offer solutions that allow AI processing on an organisation’s own infrastructure, providing an option for keeping sensitive information under its control. There are also local companies like IntellectStorm that could take on the work of building such a system. This is a substantial project, but it is the kind of practical use of technology that could make a difference to how a public programme operates.

The system would still need people checking its work. For example, it should not favour someone simply because they paid for a beautifully written proposal, or overlook a sound idea because the applicant struggled to explain it. But without enough staff and sensible automation, the backlog could become a nightmare. Officers could end up opening whichever files are easiest, or responding first to whoever calls most often. The person quietly waiting at home would have no idea where they stand.

Finally, an applicant should be able to log in and see what documents are missing, whether a review has started and when to expect an answer. Making it easy to apply was a good start. Making the process manageable and fair is the work that follows.

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• Applications, Guyana Development Bank, Karen Abrams, President Ali

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