The banking industry faces increased pressure to meet global standards domestically, as well as attract international investors, and serve the large number of diaspora that remain economically tied to the country.
At the time of independence, the banking and financial sector was quite underdeveloped, serving an agriculture-heavy economy that had been tightly regulated by the Colonial Authority.
A parallel economy developed to deal with various economic problems, but was also a major source of inflation and currency instability.
[13] The economic growth Guyana had enjoyed began to slow in 1998 due to factors including undeveloped capital markets, limited access to credit, and high emigration of educated individuals leading to brain-drain.
[10] These issues as well as previous waves of large-scale emigration have contributed to remittances making up a large portion of the country's GDP.
[14] The International Monetary Fund instituted Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) policies, which instigated an exodus of correspondent banks from the Caribbean.
[16] Bank of Baroda announced plans to sell off their Guyana operations, but reversed their decision, possibly due to the discovery of off-shore oil as motivation to stay in the country.
Plans for a National Payment System have been devised with the World Bank that will modernize interbank communications.