Our bankers are the shits, their lending practices are the pits, their masters are real gits, and the people who are dim wits, cannot see the light when obscured by tits!

Entrepreneurship is encouraged, but teaching financial management, and providing insurance for economic downturns is not done by the formal sector

The ONLY last resort of turning to the 10% a month interest charging money lender is a license to commit suicide in this economic climate. NO wonder there is slow growth and neither Presidential Candidate has a ready solution to offer.

We live in very uncertain times. Depite the CBSL order to reduce lending rates those benefiting are the larger borrowers who have a credit history, and managing to pay, albeit with difficulty. The critical sector, the SMEs needing Rs5M or less in working capital, or similar business development loans, the true engine of our economy, up and down the country, in every town and village, do not have access to such. 

Only larger organizations with business men who are able to use their crony capitalist credentials to obtain loans, have interest waived, and grease the palms of tax inspectors to further benefit from the CBSL interest lowering windfall. If all that fails, they have a politician who will demand that the state banks lend to this deadbeat, resulting in 90% of the defaults of State Banks.

The article by WA Wijewardena in today’s FT illustrates three examples of enterprising people who don’t have access to funds, and resort to the village money lender whose rates of interest is a recipe for a “License to commit suicide”.

I have maintained all along that the SL Banks pride themselves in making the biggest profits of any company in SL. However it is due to their sheer greed, using collateral for lending, so they cover their backsides many fold, are of NO help to the up and coming businessman, the back bone for recovery and empowerment for youth to take risks and grow the economy.

The Airhead and the Warhead seeking our vote simply cannot comprehend this simple task, and they don’t have advisers with brain cells who can either, so we the public are left to rue another lost chance, as the name of the game in politics is to make promises that sound good, but don’t mean a hill of beans to the economy as they are EMPTY PROMISES!

How and when can we educate our voting public that we need an army of practical bankers, who have their ear to the ground, able to identify a good business proposition from a con artist, and lend to this sector that is the true engine of growth. Even I have approached banks for small loans, less than Rs1M, but branch managers don’t use discretion asking instead for mortgage on land worth many times more, are they serious?

http://www.ft.lk/columns/Fixing-lending-rates-and-waiving-farmer-loans-two-policies-that-do-not-augur-well-for-borrowers/4-687972