Typically, the Credit Bureau operates at full functionality in developing markets with the primary goal of facilitating access to finance for small and medium-scale enterprises. Throughout the world, the SME sector accounts for over 60% of the employed workforce. That notwithstanding, the development of this sector remains constrained by a lack of access to investment capital arising out of a scarcity of investment data in the credit environment to accurately assess the risk factors that obtains in each credit application. Here in Guyana our financial institutions simply do not know enough about the credit history of most applicants for loans.
Lending institutions have responded to this challenge by either imposing high interest rates to adequately ‘cover’ the extent of their exposure, or else, deny the loan application altogether.
In either case the SME is placed at a
