Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert, says the main commercial banks have indicated that there has been substantial increases in credit card usage and its issuance.
Commenting on the the growing foreign exchange challenges currently plaguing Trinidad and Tobago at the Campus Principal’s Awards and Conference of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, he called for impartial research to be conducted on matters of national importance.
Minister Imbert is suggesting that such research and its results must occur without political bias.
“I said, tell me what’s going on. We were looking at credit card usage, for example, because I had a belief that, look, one of the problems that is behind our foreign exchange issue is the use of credit cards.”
He further questioned the increase in the number of active credit cards and the type of spend by credit card users over the last five years.
“Believe it or not, 50% increase in the number of cards, 50% increase in spend by credit card users over the last five years. But I had to do that research myself.”