| James Kon |
A VARIETY of issues on lending infrastructure were deliberated, as renowned international experts from the credit field convened for the inaugural Brunei Darussalam Getting Credit (BDGC) Conference 2018 at the Rizqun International Hotel, Gadong yesterday.
Over 100 individuals com-prising government officials, academics, as well as players from the financial and business industries, including represent-atives of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were present.
Themed ‘Leveraging Rep-utational, Traditional, and Alternative Collateral to Raise Capital’, the one-day event was organised by Autoriti Monetari Brunei Darussalam (AMBD) in collaboration with the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Asia-Pacific Financial Forum (APFF), Asia-Pacific Credit Coalition (APCC), and the Policy and Economic Research Council (PERC).
In his address, AMBD Managing Director Yusof bin Haji Abdul Rahman noted the importance of a robust and efficient credit infrastructure in enabling greater access to finance, stability and socially-responsible economic growth.
He highlighted as well the possibility of using reputational, traditional and non-traditional collateral to help financial institutions expand their financial products and services, adding that this simultaneously helps individuals and MSMEs gain access to more favourable and competitive financing options.
“As part of our capacity-build-ing initiative and to raise awareness in this area, this conference brings together stakeholders who play vital roles in the development of MSMEs.
“It is my hope that various strategies will be discussed here, which could possibly be developed in the future to help increase the flow of credit and financial services to MSMEs,” he said.
“The conference panellists will provide us with valuable insights into the main issues and successful best practices of credit infrastructure, as well as some of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of MSMEs finance. We should make good use of this opportunity to learn from the subject matter experts.”
With regards to enhancing greater access to credit in the MSME sector, Yusof said that the whole country has a role to play, noting that “we all can potentially strengthen a vital building block for economic growth and prosperity”.
The conference also saw the launching of a ‘National Credit Scoring’ scorecard system and ‘Online Credit Report’, which will gauge Brunei Darussalam’s ability to give access to credit.