Bahamas News

The re-launch of an RBC loans program aimed at young professionals may help stem the country’s brain drain and at the same time broaden its base of skilled workers.

“We must retain our brightest and best,” said Nathaniel Beneby, VP and country head for the bank. Specifically, those “who can invest and build new companies and practices and grow our economy.”

“Initiatives like (our) Professionals’ Programme will become even more important as The Bahamas continues to grow.”

The principle behind the initiative focused on helping candidates set up a business isn’t especially new.

For more than a 100 years, banks have been providing loans to doctors, lawyers and chartered accounts looking to expand or grow their practice.

Much rarer - especially in this region - has been institutions prepared to extend that credit to young professionals less than five years out of school.

It’s a chief complaint of Bahamian students anxious to return home and hang out a shingle. Too often they’re without the necessary backing to nail that down.

A key component of the RBC program is to provide loans for that entrepreneurship as well as funding for education.

The terms attached to that support are also favorable; namely, relatively low interest rates - prime plus two percent - and 100-percent financing on term loans for essentials like medical equipment and mortgages on office space.

“The equipment serves as the collateral,” said Beneby.

Qualifying amounts depend on a combination of factors, from potential earning power to the soundness of feasibility studies and business plans applicant submit.

RBC is also limiting the program to a select group of graduates - those in a limited number of accredited professions.

The restriction is by design.

“There is evidence to support, that these professionals have the potential to earn higher incomes and earn them faster,” offered Beneby, suggesting the bank is not prepared to sacrifice the soundness of its book on a bad bet however well intentioned.

That’s only fair, said one young Bahamian at law school in the UK.

“It’s a wise move by the bank to ensure that they will be able to get their money back,” argued Keenan Johnson, an 18-year-old from Eleuthera. He’s now completing his first year at Cardiff University in Wales, and worries many like him won’t return home to The Bahamas.

“At this point I do believe that the youth of our country who go off to school find more opportunities abroad so they decide not to come back home,” he said. “I find it difficult to believe that the students who graduate and stay abroad to work do so because they actually want to.

“I have no intention of (doing so) unless I don’t see an opportunity for me to come back home and work in the field of my degree.”

Ultimately Johnson’s decision and those of hundreds of other students will dictate just who benefits from an economy continuing to mount impressive gains even as that of the US begins to slow.

“Right now we are importing skilled professionals at an increasing rate, while many of our home-grown professionals are staying abroad after university,” Beneby said, echoing the concerns of many in the business community. “RBC is committed to providing the financial resources so that professionals can comfortably return home and stem the brain drain that many developing countries experience.”

Johnson may be a future candidate for that program.

“If the loans are better than average rates of interest, I personally don’t see why any young Bahamian seeking to become a professional, wouldn’t be

interested,” he said Thursday.

For now, he’s servicing one of the thousands of student loans offered by the government through its lending agent.

By Vernon Clement
The Nassau Guardian