Third Consolidation Line of Credit: Caribbean Financial Services Corporation (2016)

Financial Services

Project Completion Validation Report

Complete

Regional

Summary

CDB has enjoyed a lending relationship with the Caribbean Financial Services Corporation (CFSC), headquartered in Barbados, since 1994, and as at 2005 had provided two loans of USD5 mn each. As a regional private sector Development Finance Institution (DFI), CFSC seeks to fill a gap in the provision of development finance to small and medium-scale export-oriented enterprises. CFSC’s core business areas are loan and equity investments to commercially viable, employment generating projects in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) member countries, Barbados, Belize, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. CFSC’s loan and equity portfolios are heavily skewed towards tourism and related activities, but attempts were made to diversify across geographical locations in which it operates. CFSC has created a niche in financing tourism activities, especially within OECS member countries. In 2005, CFSC, applied to CDB for a third Line of Credit (LOC) of USD5 mn to assist with the financing of its medium to long-term lending programme to export-oriented enterprises involved in agriculture, industry, tourism and service sectors.