Bank­ing blues are heavy in Trinidad and To­ba­go and it doesn’t have any­thing to do with “blue notes.”

Rather the op­po­site.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty say dai­ly COVID pres­sure is be­ing com­pound­ed by some banks’ pro­ce­dures in the pan­dem­ic-bat­tered econ­o­my.

All eyes are on what Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert’s up­com­ing mid-year re­view will bring to ease the pres­sure.

In 2020 banks re­spond­ed to Gov­ern­ment’s call to tol­er­ate cus­tomers un­able to ful­fil their pay­ments due to the re­stric­tions, which im­pact­ed jobs and the econ­o­my.

Re­cent­ly amid stiffer lock­down re­stric­tions—on es­tab­lish­ments from food to re­tail—and the State of Emer­gency, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley urged banks to be le­nient with cus­tomers af­fect­ed by the re­stric­tions.

Cen­tral Bank an­nounced a mora­to­ri­um on loans un­til Sep­tem­ber 30. Pub­lished re­ports in­di­cat­ed that on­ly a hand­ful of com­mer­cial fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions of­fered the op­tion to cus­tomers whose in­come is COVID af­fect­ed and seemed to be weigh­ing op­tions on help­ing cus­tomers.

Busi­ness­man George Tan­nous called for banks to be more aware of the role they are play­ing at this time.

“Banks are the on­ly ones mak­ing mon­ey. Every­one else is suf­fer­ing. There should be more in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions—re­duc­tion of in­ter­est charges and flex­i­bil­i­ty to ex­am­ine things bet­ter, case by case. De­fer­rals don’t re­al­ly help. Plus Gov­ern­ment’s hands are tied in this as its de­fer­ral call isn’t law.

‘’Banks need to un­der­stand what they’re do­ing af­fects all of T&T not just the cus­tomer in front of them. The prime min­is­ter called for land­lords not to evict ten­ants, but land­lords ow­ing banks have no choice since banks de­mand pay­ments,” Tan­nous said.

“More busi­ness­es will close”

Su­per­mar­kets’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Ra­jiv Diptee added, “Peo­ple are suf­fer­ing, they have res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial loans to pay. But banks aren’t heed­ing Cen­tral Bank’s de­fer­ral call. When you have loans you have to find the mon­ey for in­stal­ments. If you de­fer, banks are tak­ing ex­tra in­ter­est and com­pound­ing your sit­u­a­tion. That’s puni­tive­ly un­fair be­cause no one is get­ting rev­enue to make pay­ments on reg­u­lar­ly.”

Diptee said SATT mem­bers de­cid­ed not to pri­ori­tise prof­it at this time and shown our­selves to be car­ing in­sti­tu­tions—per­haps banks can fol­low suit.”

Mean­while, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness­es co-or­di­na­tor Jai Lelad­hars­ingh stat­ed, “Banks aren’t shar­ing in the coun­try’s sac­ri­fice. Small and medi­um busi­ness­es are in trou­ble. The on­ly bank giv­ing de­fer­rals is FCB (First Cit­i­zens). Oth­ers aren’t.

“With no rev­enue, peo­ple need to pay bills, em­ploy­ees and sup­pli­ers. If this con­tin­ues and banks don’t give re­lief, 4,000 to 5,000 busi­ness­es will close. Per­ma­nent­ly.’’

Op­po­si­tion shad­ow Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo said, “We’re in a vi­cious cy­cle. In­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es are hurt­ing but banks seem to have no de­sire to ease the pres­sure, nor is there suf­fi­cient lead­er­ship or at­tempt by Gov­ern­ment to en­gage banks ful­ly.

“The ef­fect of this is more job loss which will have a mul­ti­pli­er re­sult caus­ing T&T’s tax base to shrink, the econ­o­my to con­tract fur­ther and more prob­lems for all. Peo­ple need­ed sup­port last year but Gov­ern­ment’s sys­tem made it al­most im­pos­si­ble to ac­cess as­sis­tance. We’re now won­der­ing who’s wait­ing to ‘grab and go’ with busi­ness­es which col­lapse.”

An au­dit­ing firm chief, who pre­ferred for his name not to be re­leased al­so added his voice to the is­sue.

“The econ­o­my’s not picked up—busi­ness­es are un­der more pres­sure than last year. Adding bank­ing prob­lems to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion will keep the econ­o­my down. Banks need to ex­am­ine sit­u­a­tions care­ful­ly be­fore com­pound­ing the prob­lem.”

Last week a gov­ern­ment source said “ne­go­ti­a­tions” are oc­cur­ring with banks.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) for a re­sponse but there was no re­ply.