{"id":24533,"date":"2012-08-10T10:21:05","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T14:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=24533"},"modified":"2012-08-10T10:21:05","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T14:21:05","slug":"bahamas-development-bank-to-be-made-more-responsive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/08\/bahamas-development-bank-to-be-made-more-responsive","title":{"rendered":"Bahamas Development Bank To Be Made More Responsive"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Bahamas Development Bank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Government is to amend the Bahamas Development Bank Act to make the bank \u201cmore responsive to the needs of clients in the modern environment,\u201d Ministry of Finance\u2019s Parliamentary Secretary Michael Halkitis confirmed.<\/p>\n

He tabled legislation to that effect in the House of Assembly on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The amendments, said Mr. Halkitis, represent \u201ca significant shift in the Bank\u2019s operating guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

They seek to give the Bank an enhanced ability to provide alternative means of business support; broaden the Bank\u2019s target group; and empower the Bank\u2019s board to engage staff without the Minister\u2019s prior approval, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these actions are consistent with the Government\u2019s vision of support for the business community,\u201d he told the House.<\/p>\n

The Bahamas Development Bank Act was assented to in October 1974 and began operation in 1978.<\/p>\n

Since then the Bank \u201chas played an integral role in the economic development of The Bahamas by lending money to small and start-up businesses throughout the country,\u201d said Mr. Halkitis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there have been many success stories over the years,\u201d he added, \u201cfor a variety of reasons the success rate of both businesses financed and supported by the Bank, and the financial performance of the Bank itself leave considerable room for improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amendments being proposed, he said, are designed to \u201creposition the Bank to be more agile and responsive to the needs of clients in the modern environment and to give more autonomy to the Bank in the engagement of staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bank is to be given more flexibility in the types of instruments it may use to facilitate the provision of credit.<\/p>\n

Also, the Bank will be provided with \u201ccircumscribed power to provide guarantees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amendment broadens this power,\u201d said Mr. Halkitis, \u201cgiving the Bank the ability to make guarantees and the power to purchase debt instruments from Bahamian companies as a means of providing support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis enhanced power creates a much more flexible credit platform for the Bank which should result in a lower cost of credit for clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

References to \u2018small businesses\u2019 are being removed and replaced with \u2018Bahamian businesses\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is to remove ambiguity as to the definition of \u2018small businesses\u2019 and expand the scope of the Bank\u2019s activities to include larger projects,\u201d said Mr. Halkitis.<\/p>\n

Although legislation governing the Bank refers to \u2018small businesses\u2019, he explained, \u201cthere was no real definition and this lack of definition served over time to confuse many would be clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was earlier announced that the Government intends to progress work on the small and medium enterprise development agency.<\/p>\n

Mr. Halkitis said its work will focus on developing \u201ca true guideline\u201d for identifying a small business\u2026and moving the focus of the Government\u2019s assistance from the provision of lending to the provision of more flexible instruments of support like guarantees and letters of credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a difficult economic environment where the availability of funds from the central government is challenged,\u201d said Mr. Halkitis, \u201ccreative measures to finance and support the development of Bahamian businesses must be utilised.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Gladstone Thurston
\nBahamas Information Services<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bahamas Development Bank Act will be amended to make the bank more responsive to the needs of clients in the modern environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"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":[83,49],"class_list":["post-24533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-banks","tag-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}