Aubyn Hill - File

Aubyn Hill, who formerly headed National Commercial Bank (NCB), yesterday launched a micro-finance outfit, which he has substantially modelled off Asia's Grameen Bank - famed for its success in steering capital to the poor.

Hill told a launch function that he and other private investors have put up about $220 million for the organisation, NationGrowth Micro-finance, which will make loans of between $10,000 and $500,000.

But what Hill expects to distinguish his organisation from others in the micro-finance sector will be competitive rates, as well as its capacity to lend to entrepreneurs "who wish to access financing and work in a group structure, but have no tangible collateral".

"Just over three years ago, driven by the Grameen Bank example, I decided to study microfinance and its relevance to Jamaica," Hill said at the launch function at the organisation's St Lucia Avenue, New Kingston, office.

"I engaged two consultants from the Indian subcontinent region to help me with the study."

Added a bank brochure: "A substantial portion of Nation-Growth's collateral from clients will be created by training and guiding our clients to develop personal discipline."

Hill returned to Jamaica early in the decade after an 11-year stint as president of Bank of Oman to head Michael Lee Chin's National Commercial Bank (NCB), where he was the boss for just over two years.

Non-tangible collateral

Three years ago, he left NCB and set up a private consultancy, Corporate Strategies Limited, whose major assignment so far was the restructuring of Lee Chin's operations in Trinidad and Tobago.

With NationGrowth, of which he is chairman, Hill said clients will be able to offer "non-tangible collateral" as part of an effort to break the "cycle of poverty in Jamaica and eventually elsewhere in the Caribbean."

While Hill hopes to apply the Grameen Bank concept to Jamaica, business sources say that Grameen itself may have had an interest in the island.

Recently, officials from Grameen, they say, were in the island at the invitation of music and entertainment industry entrepreneur, Chris Blackwell discussing the prospect and what might work here.

richard.deane@gleanerjm.com