A SENIOR BANKER is advising Barbadians not to overuse credit cards in the current economic climate.
Ian De Souza, managing director and chief executive officer of Republic Bank, said the increase of the use of credit was a usual occurrence when people found themselves scarce for cash but such dependence could be dangerous.
“As people come under financial pressure and their cash flow circumstances change, there is usually a tendency to use more credit card type debt and that is something all banks will be paying close attention to because credit on credit cards can be very expensive and has to be repaid,”?he said. “It is a means by which people who do not carefully manage their affairs can get into difficulty.” As such, De Souza, speaking to the media yesterday after the opening session for a five-week executive business programme for the bank’s commercial customers, said Republic would often seek to help such people manage their debt.
“What we try to do in our interviews with customers who may be experiencing a contraction of income, is try to help them by taking any credit card debt they may have and consolidating it with other debts and spreading repayments out over a period of time,” he said.
