The St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce Industry and Agriculture has expressed concerns with the Draft OECS Harmonised Credit Reporting Bill. The Bill is being developed and promoted by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank with technical assistance from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (the IFC).
Participants expressed concern that the proposed legislation would lead to reduced access to credit, the exact reverse of what the creation of Credit Bureaus is intended to foster. Fears over the negative impact on small and micro business were raised as it was felt that such constraining rules would compound and already restrictive environment where there is already a shortage of finance for business.
This could reverberate across the economy causing economic contraction due to a drying up of the critical fuel which credit is. Moreover the effect of the legislation’s broad and unreasonable definition of “credit information” has the potential to lead to discrimination against the poorer, small and informal sectors.
Of grave related concern to the Chamber has been the tendency of Government, to rush legislation into enactment without proper national consultation with the general public and institutions who will be affected. A case in point was the Banking Act. The Chamber feels that this piece of legislation may have similar impact of negatively affecting consumers, increasing the price of services and reducing choices, events that negatively affect small business ability to access credit and thus economic growth.
The Chamber plans to deepen and widen its discussion on this critical piece of legislation both with its members and the Government, as well as its partner private sector organizations.
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