{"id":1696,"date":"2010-09-03T10:11:24","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T14:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=1696"},"modified":"2010-09-03T10:11:24","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T14:11:24","slug":"bahamians-owe-one-billion-dollars-in-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2010\/09\/bahamians-owe-one-billion-dollars-in-loans","title":{"rendered":"Bahamians Owe One Billion Dollars in Loans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bahamians are now more than$1 billion in arrears on their loans as the  public continues to struggle with keeping up mortgage payments.<\/p>\n<p>In its latest economic report, the Central Bank said the banks&#8217;credit quality indicators deteriorated further in July.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, this was buoyed by sustained high unemployment levels and a  challenging business environment.<\/p>\n<p>While there are no recent numbers on unemployment, it is widely agreed  by those in government and in business that the rate of joblessness  remains in the double digits.<\/p>\n<p>The report said total private sector loan arrears rose by$22.4  million (two percent) to$1.2 billion, with a corresponding increase to  18.6 percent of total loans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The current numbers evidence the fact that the economy is still under  some pressure and will probably continue to be for the near future,&#8221;said  Barry Malcolm, chairman of the Clearing Banks Association and Managing  Director of Scotiabank Bahamas Ltd., in an interview with The Nassau  Guardian last night.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Notwithstanding the current levels of delinquencies we&#8217;re confident  that the situation is stabilizing and will improve into 2011.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahamians are now more than$1 billion in arrears on their loans as the public continues to struggle with keeping up mortgage payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-1696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}