THE Barbados National Bank (BNB) is being encouraged to join Government in its effort to support entrepreneurship.This has come from acting Prime Minister Freundel Stuart. Speaking on Friday night during the official opening of BNB’s branch in the Limegrove Lifestyle Centre, Holetown, St James, Stuart said there was still some debate over the bank’s level of commitment to economic emancipation through entrepreneurshipat the grassroots level.“I therefore want to seize this opportunity to remind BNB that my Government is committed to radically increasing the number of entrepreneurs in Barbados to help pull us out of the current recession,” Stuart said. He noted that the support of banks was necessary to facilitate access to start-up capital. “I wish this bank, which has imbibed the entrepreneurial spirit and which has demonstrated its confidence in the Barbadian economy by opening a second major building in four months, to do all that is necessary to help strengthen the resolve to succeed and to spread the joy to other entrepreneurs,” Stuart said. He added that BNB’s aggressive market penetration had resulted in customers who were more aware and demanding and more critical of the offerings within the industry. “This growing awareness by customers with the resulting willingness to shop around has elicited a vigorous response from competitors in product development, service delivery and marketing.” Stuart added that BNB had made tremendous progressin developing a formula for success. This, he said, included trawling the existing customer base and the under served market segments for prospective clients in order to generate quick volumes and increase portfolio size. (NB)
