Government might find it harder to access commercial bank funding after the “very strong and brutal lesson” financial institutions suffered in the domestic debt restructuring programme.
Republic Financial Holdings Limited (RFHL) chairman Ronald Harford made this clear on Thursday, stating that during the debt negotiations, banks were told “if you lend to a country whose debt to GDP exceeds 140 per cent, you can’t be serious about getting back all your money”.
This, he said, was “like an axe that went into the heart of the banks”, and they would “need to be more wise about how we go forward”.
The veteran Caribbean banker was responding to a question during a panel discussion, at the Domestic Financial Institutions Conference, hosted by the Central Bank and the Financial Services Commission. (SC)
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