On Thurs­day, T&T’s largest com­mer­cial bank, Re­pub­lic Bank con­firmed that all new cred­it card cus­tomers would have a US$500 or the TT dol­lar equiv­a­lent. Re­pub­lic al­so con­firmed that while all pre­vi­ous cred­it card hold­ers would not have their lim­its ad­just­ed, they would not be is­su­ing any ad­di­tion­al cards to these cus­tomers.

The news, the lat­est in­di­ca­tion of the dearth of for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty in the coun­try, was a fur­ther blow to small busi­ness­es who have turned to cred­it cards as a means to se­cure their prod­ucts.

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) of the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness Mar­i­ano Browne ac­knowl­edged that as a re­sult of the wide­spread for­eign ex­change short­age, these busi­ness­es would be hard hit.