The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council has partnered with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, with support from the Government of Canada to develop a modern secured transactions framework to enable increased access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) using movable assets as collateral. Research indicates that approximately 70% of a firm’s wealth is concentrated in its movable assets such as equipment, inventory and account receivables.
In a bid to improve access to finance for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and St. Lucia’s ease of doing business ranking, the Government of St. Lucia is moving to introduce legislations under the “Security Interests in Movable Property Bill.” Access to finance had been a long standing issue for the private sector particularly SMEs. Last week representatives from the banking, finance and legal sectors alongside government officials participated in a two-day workshop on Secured Transactions and Collateral Registry. Permanent Secretary in the Department of Finance, Cointha Thomas highlighted that the lack of access to finance inhibits a firm’s competitiveness and productivity, its ability to expand its operations and provide much needed employment.
“This initiative with the IFC/World Bank Group will allow businesses to access financing using their moveable properties or assets such as equipment, vehicles, inventory, receivable and others as security/collateral for loan financing. This is important as 70% of a firm’s wealth is said to be concentrated in their moveable assets. To support this initiative a legal framework and a registry system will be put in place for providing credit using moveable assets.”
The International Finance Corporation works with governments across the globe to develop frameworks that allow borrowers to obtain loans by using their collateral resources to help create new alternatives for SMEs to obtain financing. Elaine MacEachern is the Senior Financial Sector Specialist with the IFC.
“Approximately 57% of the firms in St. Lucia have access to finance challenges. Only 24.5% of those firms have a bank loan or line of credit and 98% of those loans to small and medium-size firms require collateral over 1.9 times the load amount. 13% of those companies have credit to finance their working capital and 23% their investments leaving SMEs largely to self-finance their operations and obviously this impacts cash flow challenges.”
St. Lucia is currently ranked 161 out of 189 economies on the World Bank Ease of Doing Business, getting credit indicator. However, this ranking is expected to improve with the passage of this new legislation.
“Once the Security Interest in Movable Property Bill is tabled and approved by parliament, the design and the development of the collateral registry will be the next step in creating the enabling infrastructure to increase access to credit for SMEs.”
Partner at Grant Thornton, Richard Peterkin, said though the piece of legislation is very technical and many persons may not initially grasp the concept it can increase access to credit for SMEs.
“We are close to getting a bill from what I see and that’s good but like everything else in life getting the bill is just the first step. The ability to establish that registry which would list all the assets allow users to go online and see whose got what, what security is there, it’s going to be a tough task but I am glad to see that the World Bank and NCPC and the Government of Canada are working with the Government of St. Lucia to make this a reality in the not too distant future. I think in many instances there are bits and pieces of legislation we still need as well. One of them is the insolvency act which again we have a bill but it’s not being passed and without that the lenders are not really going to get into lending to movable assets so we need a numbers of things that have to change over the next year or so in order to open up our markets to new types of products that will allow transactions to flow and finance to be available to those who traditionally have a problem getting it.”
Business Development Officer for Axcel Finance, Mervin Agiste, said this bill aligns with his company’s model of credit financing.
“It is off course heartening to see that everything is coming into place through legislation and off course institutionalization, so Axcel Finance with definitely continue in the path that it has been to ensure that our small businesses continue to grow through the use of movable assets to secure their financial stability.”
Irvin Springer, Business Development Manager at 1st National Bank, indicated that the passage of this Bill with go hand in hand with a new initiative his bank is pursuing.
“We’re actually going to be launching a SME Competency Centre in the coming weeks which will be providing products and financial services to the SME sector so the secure transaction bill now being passed will actually enhance this effort because one of the biggest challenges faced by SMEs is the inability to provide security for credit.”
The IFC is hopeful that other member countries of the currency union will be motivated by St. Lucia’s advances and consider making this solution a regional one. The two-day workshop was held at the Finance Administrative Centre November 5th to 6th, 2019.