BANKERS in Barbados are insisting they are reducing prime lending rates to their customers despite concerns from the Central Bank that the cuts have not gone far enough.

Central Bank Governor Dr Marion Williams during her review of the economy for the first three months of the year last Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction with the level of reductions applied to interest rates on loans.

This, she said, was despite two cuts in the interest rates applied to savings accounts which the Central Bank instituted in December and again in April.

She said the bankers had enough time instituting lending rate cuts that related to cuts on interest paid on savings.

But yesterday The Barbados Bankers Association (TBBA) hit back, insisting that in their meeting with the Central Bank "all the banks indicated that they were in the process of reducing the prime lending rate".

TBBA president Oliver Jordan, however, called on the Central Bank to undertake further analysis on the average mortgage rates to "distinguish between the personal mortgage rate and the commercial mortgage rates as there appeared to be anomalies in the data presented".

Jordan said it was the bankers expectation that in the coming months each financial institution would make its own determination on what cuts would be coming for mortgage rates.

Meanwhile, the bankers in a statement signed by Jordan told the Central Bank that any decisions that it made on further reductions in the minimum savings rate should be governed by the prevailing economic conditions in Barbados and not on the response of individual banks through their lending rates. (GE)