Government-owned micro-bank and financial exclusion: a case study of small business people in east Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Microfinance is commonly known as banking upside down because micro-lending institutions make very small loans available to businesspeople excluded from conventional banks. Microfinance has piqued the interest of political elites in many Global South countries because of its support by the poor mass...

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Published inCanadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 394 - 410
Main Author Hossein, Caroline Shenaz
Format Journal Article Book Review
LanguageEnglish
Published Kingston Routledge 01.11.2015
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Banking
Case studies
class bias
Community development
Descent
elites
Entrepreneurship
Finance
financial exclusion
Lending institutions
Loans
Microfinance
NEDCO
party politics
persons of African descent
Political elites
Politics
Public finance
Slums
Small business
state lending
State power
states
Supporters
Trinidad and Tobago
Spain
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Summary:Microfinance is commonly known as banking upside down because micro-lending institutions make very small loans available to businesspeople excluded from conventional banks. Microfinance has piqued the interest of political elites in many Global South countries because of its support by the poor masses. The case of the Trinidadian microfinance sector shows that the state dominates the micro-lending sector through its agency, the National Entrepreneurship Development Company (NEDCO). The main argument for this paper is that government-owned microfinance is in fact "political microfinance" because of its exclusionary tendency of the small businesspeople in the slums of east Port of Spain. On the ground, the current party politics have fuelled the perception that persons of African descent are the most excluded from accessing a small loan. However, this paper finds that no matter which party is in power, the state has co-opted NEDCO to make loans available to its own party supporters, and this practice goes against the microfinance sector's goal of inclusive finance.
ISSN:0826-3663
2333-1461
DOI:10.1080/08263663.2015.1090707