The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC) has achieved another milestone toward fully implementing the Collateral Registry. The Collateral Registry supports the recently passed Security Interest in Movable Properties Act. Economist and Project Leader at the NCPC, Sharma Mathurin said this project is now halfway through implementation with a formal launch scheduled for the latter part of this year.
“We have to remember why we are implementing and that is to decrease the cost of access to financing and to ease access to financing, particularly for micro and small businesses. And, of course, it will have positive externalities for other stakeholders for example the general public. So if you have a valuable asset and you want to use it to apply for a loan, the positive externalities of this project also apply to you.”
Stakeholders and end users recently participated in a week-long, hands-on training and consultation session on the novel Collateral Registry System and the Security Interest in Movable Properties Act. The sessions brought together professionals from both the legal and financial sectors who were taught the navigational tools within the platform to successfully complete transactions on the Collateral Registry.
“It’s a very interactive session, very hands-on, and the system, the software is very user friendly. I think it gives the advantage that everybody now has greater access to being able to do this.” Shirlan Louis, Credit Administration Department, Bank of Saint Lucia.
“With this software the whole registration process, for me, I think is going to be seamless, more efficient, more accurate, and of course, cost-effective for the customers out there. So all in all I think it’s a very good initiative. I am looking forward to working with it and I know my colleagues will be excited to work with something like that.” Solomon Emmanuel, Senior Manager, Corporate Banking, First National Bank Saint Lucia Ltd.
The Collateral Registry system will be based at and managed by the High Court.
“We also had training sessions with the High Court Staff to prepare them for the coming of this Collateral Registry. They will be the host of this system and so they did work with the vendor in terms of learning the different activities that they can be performed within this system.”
The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have partnered with the NCPC from project inception. Senior Operation Officer with the IFC, John Wilson, observed that the Security Interest in Movable Properties Act was met with both excitement and apprehension by stakeholders due to the significant amendments to the previous reform.
“There is a concern about the steps that the banks have to take to basically be ready to implement the new system. The legal framework itself now that the registry is launched in a couple of months has the opportunity to provide some guidance in terms of what is expected of financial institutions from the act and the regulatory and the registry standpoint. Part of the session today aimed to assist in that transition from the previous system which was a mixed bag of different acts, legal mechanisms, and legal products into a uniform or cohesive product, a single registration system. So I think there is enthusiasm and acceptance that will be extremely beneficial to financial institutions. But that transition, how do you go from the old way of doing things to the new way of doing things has been one of the concerns that had been expressed and I think that this was one of the principal objectives of this session today.”
He said the way forward post the launch is to work with financial institutions to innovate credit products that use new types of collateral that engage in a more sustainable and inclusive manner with those who have not had traditional collateral to offer. Saint Lucia is the first in the OECS Region to establish a Collateral Registry.
“When you are successful at implementing it grabs the attention of so many other persons not only in Saint Lucia but throughout the region and so this project initially started with only Saint Lucia in mind and we got the attention from the World Bank, from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and from other regional agencies to replicate this project throughout the region.”
The NCPC will roll out a full PR and marketing campaign for the launch phase of this project scheduled for September 2023.