MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance Delays Microfinance Institutions’ Exemptions from Money Lending Act, Blocking Wholesale Funding from Development Bank of Jamaica

Members of the Jamaica Micro Financing Association (JaMFA), a committee of eight microfinance institutions formed in 2008, reportedly have had their access to relatively cheap wholesale funds from the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), a state-owned bank, blocked due to delays in the Ministry of Finance in renewing their exemptions from the Money Lending Act, a law established in Jamaica in 1938 [1].