Ambassador to the United States John Beale may have set the cat among the pigeons in a recent interview with our North American Editor Tony Best. The interview had little or nothing to do with diplomacy, but instead alleged that local bankers discriminate against those people over 60 years of age who may apply for long-term mortgages. In practice, he said, age rules them out for the loan!
Ambassador Beale, who is a former banker, obviously speaks with the gravitas and credibility of an insider, and he makes it clear that from a banking perspective it makes no sense; because as he sees it, “age is not a criterion for lending money – neither too young nor too old”.
As if to rub in his point, he went on further to say “you have 60-year-olds who are good risks and bad risks, just like you have 20-year-olds who are good and bad risks. Banks shouldn’t just say you are old and I can’t give you a loan”.
What the former banker-turned-diplomat is saying is that banks discriminate on the basis of age rather than assessing the transaction as a whole and coming to a conclusion.
We may not know exactly what triggered this declaration from the ambassador, but he may have hit a nerve because the policy of making assessments of financial transactions on the basis of the applicant’s age is something which has been often whispered about in this country, although sometimes a brave soul here and there might venture to complain publicly on the call-in programmes.
But this is the first time that a banking insider has done us the public service of disclosing what goes on behind closed doors of the banking halls, and it is now clear that serious discrimination against the over-60s takes place within the banking system of our country.
This is totally unacceptable in any country and especially so in a country like ours in which advances in health care allied to a salubrious climate allows many more of our people to live longer and to have a life expectancy way past the age of 60.
It is little wonder that the Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP) has spoken out against this outrage. Its president Ernest Batson added his voice in support of the ambassador. Batson disclosed that BARP had “long held that the banks’ policy is discriminatory and should be changed. We have asked about it, but nothing has been done”.
We urge BARP to continue its lobby against this discrimination if only because most if not all financial transactions are structured with physical or other tangible security that protects the lender if the borrowed dies before the period of the loan expires or before repaying the debt.
We therefore support those who call for the banning of age discrimination practices against the over-60s, and urge all interested parties to let their voices be heard. We wonder, however, if there may be not be a need for legislation to outlaw this kind of unequal and discriminatory treatment of seniors.
We recognize that there must be retirement laws and other rules that recognize the impact of advancing years, but if the goodly ambassador can secure a 30-year mortgage in the United States at 64, then surely it must be local restrictive practices rather than any inherent banking fundamentals that dictate the rules which Ambassador Beale condemns.
Within the past two years British legislators have answered the cries of those who railed against the unequal treatment practices in that country and has enacted legislation, including protection from age discrimination.
In the face of these recent disclosures about banking practices here, we feel that a serious examination must be made so that these and other local rules and practices that discriminate against those over 60 can be eliminated.
