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The Bank Said Yes. Should Your Business Say Yes?
You’re now in the final quarter of 2026.
Remember that to-do list you compiled in January? The one you swore up and down you were going to complete by December 31st?
Somewhere along the way, life happened.
Business happened.
Customers happened.
Cash flow happened.
And that list has probably been tossed somewhere.
Then you open social media.
As you doom-scroll, it feels as though everybody’s mama, sister and auntie is posting a success story.
New launch.
Networking event.
Major customer.
Retail placement.
Expansion.
New equipment.
Another “I’m so excited to finally announce…” post.
Meanwhile, you feel as though you’re still treading water.
And then, almost on cue, the loan offers start appearing.
TT$100,000. Maybe more. Different interest rates. Different repayment periods. Money that suddenly looks like an answer.
So you tell yourself: "You know what? Maybe I should take it."
Maybe you can finally fix the things you didn’t get done.
Expand.
Buy equipment.
Clear some bills.
Put some money into marketing.
Give the business the push it needs.
Maybe 2026 won’t feel like such a bust after all.
And maybe you can enter 2027 feeling as though you’ve finally caught up.
Stop there.
Because you may be about to make a long-term capital decision in response to a short-term emotional problem.
🔴When Borrowing Feels Like Catching Up
How many times have I seen founders take this “Hail Mary” option? Too many to count.
And while, as a Fundability Strategist, part of my job is helping businesses prepare for funding, another part of my responsibility is sometimes telling a founder: Not this money. Not this much.
And sometimes: Not yet.
Because there's an important difference between getting access to capital and being ready to carry it.
This matters even more now because there are genuine efforts underway to expand SME financing in Trinidad and Tobago.
In March 2026, the Caribbean Development Bank approved a US$10 million line of credit through Development Finance Limited to expand SME financing in productive sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and energy efficiency.
Another initiative, the IDB-supported Term Finance SME TT project, is designed to expand MSME financing in Trinidad and Tobago, with women-led MSMEs expected to represent at least 50% of the supported portfolio.
The operation was signed in August 2026.
That's a programme target, not a report of loans already disbursed.
And I welcome that. We've spent long enough talking about the difficulty women entrepreneurs face getting through the door to capital.
But there's another conversation we now need to have.
What happens when the door finally opens?
Access to capital doesn't remove our responsibility to determine whether that capital makes business sense.
🔴We Saw the Furniture. We Couldn’t See the Debt.
There’s something about Christmas in the Caribbean that makes this conversation so familiar to me.
Growing up, we looked on with envy when the delivery truck entered the neighbourhood carrying new furniture and appliances.
Somebody was getting a new living-room suite.
A television.
A refrigerator.
Maybe the children were getting new beds.
In our young minds, those people were rich. Their children were lucky.
We could see the new things.
What we couldn’t see was the obligation sitting behind them.
Hire-purchase payments would continue long after Christmas had passed.
And I also remember what sometimes happened when families couldn’t keep up: eventually, the "Repo Men" came.
“We saw the furniture. We couldn’t see the debt.”
Businesses can make exactly the same mistake.
We see the renovated office.
The new equipment.
The delivery vehicle.
The retail placement.
The big launch.
The social-media announcement.
We see what the money bought.
We don’t necessarily see the liability sitting behind it.
And that's why I want you to separate looking successful from becoming financially stronger. They're not always the same thing.
🔴I Am Not Anti-Debt
Let me state this categorically.
There's nothing inherently wrong with debt.
Debt can help a healthy business increase capacity,
manage a genuine working-capital gap,
acquire productive equipment or
take advantage of an opportunity it can demonstrate exists.
My concern isn’t debt.
My concern is what the debt is being asked to do.
🔴Productive Debt or Rescue Debt?
Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago gives us two perfect examples. Fruit cake and pastelles.
If you grew up here-or you’re part of the Caribbean diaspora-you know exactly what I mean. Christmas comes and suddenly somebody wants to know who's making the fruit cake and who has pastelles for sale.
Returning family and friends want them.
People abroad want them.
Existing customers come looking.
But increased demand requires money before all of those sales arrive.
Consider two illustrative businesses facing that opportunity.
The Fruit Cake Business: Productive Debt
Imagine you make traditional West Indian fruit cakes.
You already have several years of Christmas sales behind you.
Orders are coming in.
You know approximately how many cakes you sold last year.
You know your price per pound.
You know your margins.
And you know that increased production means buying more soaked fruit, browning, Cherry Brandy. Rum and other ingredients.
You’ll use more electricity.
You may need additional labour.
Packaging and delivery costs increase.
But you have evidence showing that Christmas creates increased demand, and you understand what producing additional cakes is likely to cost and generate.
You may have a legitimate working-capital opportunity.
The money is being used to increase productive capacity against demonstrated demand.
That’s a debt conversation worth having.
It still needs a repayment plan and a loan amount calculated from the actual cash gap.
Now Meet the Pastelle Business
The opportunity looks remarkably similar. Christmas demand is coming.
Pastelles require their own production investment:
Banana leaves,
Promasa corn flour,
Beef and other fillings,
Olives, capers, raisins, seasoning,
Packaging and steamers.
And anyone who has made pastelles knows that production is labor-intensive.
Our second founder therefore sees the same opportunity. She also wants the
TT$100,000.
But her business looks different.
Sales have been weak for months.
She hasn’t reviewed her pricing recently.
She’s not entirely sure of the cost per pastelle once labour, ingredients, packaging and overhead are included.
Personal and business expenses move through the same account.
Some suppliers are waiting to be paid.
Existing debt is already consuming cash.
But Christmas is coming. So she tells herself: If I can just get that TT$100,000, Christmas will straighten everything out.
Fruit cake. Pastelles. Same Christmas demand. Comparable production pressures. Same TT$100,000.
Completely different debt decision.
The fruit-cake founder may be borrowing to increase productive capacity against demand she can demonstrate.
The pastelle founder may be asking Christmas revenue to rescue weaknesses that existed long before Christmas arrived.
That’s what I mean by Productive Debt versus Rescue Debt.
These are my teaching categories, not formal lender classifications. Neither the product nor borrowing for operating expenses determines the category.
The business evidence does.
And here’s the question I want you to ask: If you received the money tomorrow, what problem would still be sitting inside the business six months from now?
If poor pricing,
Weak margins,
Uncontrolled spending
Or inadequate records remain unaddressed,
The loan hasn’t solved the underlying problem.
It has financed it.
🔴Take the Loan Offer Out of the Realm of Aspiration
Before I advise that fruit-cake entrepreneur to take the money, we’re going to sit down.
We’re also going to ask some uncomfortable questions.
What will this money produce?
What exactly will it buy? What demand supports the investment? What additional cash should it generate, and when will that cash arrive?
What will this money cost?
What are the interest, fees and other charges? How long will repayment take? What debt already exists? How does the new obligation fit into 2027 projections?
What happens if things don’t go according to plan?
What if Christmas isn’t as good as you expected? Sales come in 20% below forecast? Ingredient prices rise? Customers collect and pay later? You produce 500 units and sell 350?
What if the return arrives more slowly than the repayment obligation?
That’s when we move from I need this money to I can get this money, then I can afford this money, and finally:
This capital actually makes strategic sense for my business.
Those are not the same questions.
🔴Today’s Loan Will Follow You Into Tomorrow’s Funding Conversation
Today’s borrowing doesn’t disappear when you make your 2027 plans. It becomes part of them.
The Federal Reserve Banks’ 2026 Report on Employer Firms, based on its 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, offers a useful comparison.
Among firms with debt, 59% used a personal guarantee.
Among financing applicants, 56% sought funds for operating expenses and 46% for expansion or a new opportunity.
That is U.S. evidence from a convenience sample, not Trinidad and Tobago statistics.
The reasons can overlap, and borrowing for operating expenses is not automatically rescue borrowing. A healthy seasonal business may need exactly that kind of working capital.
But notice something: Expansion and operating pressure can both bring a founder to the same place-looking for money.
The application alone doesn’t tell us which one we’re dealing with.
The same report found that 60% of firms that borrowed from online lenders reported actual borrowing costs higher than expected. That brings us straight back to the fine print.
Closer to home, in July 2026 the Caribbean Development Bank approved a regional initiative that includes a web-based SME credit-scoring and risk-rating platform for participating development finance institutions.
My reading of these Caribbean initiatives is straightforward: we're working to open the door wider while strengthening how applications are assessed.
For the founder, better access to capital cannot be separated from better preparation for capital.
And that, is fundability.
🔴What Will Today’s Debt Do to Tomorrow’s Ask?
Suppose you take TT$100,000 now.
Six months later, a genuine expansion opportunity appears and you need another TT$300,000.
The first obligation hasn’t vanished.
It sits in your cash flow.
It sits among your liabilities.
It affects how much breathing room the business has.
It becomes part of the next capital conversation.
So don’t only ask: Can I afford this loan today?
Ask: What will today’s borrowing do to my next ask?
Fundability isn’t simply about getting approved. It's about understanding how one capital decision affects the next one.
🔴Read the Fine Print
And while I’m about it, let’s talk about the phrase we tend to skip: “Subject to normal lending criteria.”
Nobody is just handing you that money. The headline may tell you how much you could borrow. The lender will still want evidence.
First Citizens’ commercial borrowing requirements provide a local example:
Financial statements or management accounts,
One-year cash-flow projections with assumptions, and
Current and aged receivables and payables.
The bank says assessment includes borrowing purpose, credit history, business performance, ability to repay, collateral and stability of operations.
Requirements vary by lender and facility. But the message is clear.
“Founders read the number. Funders read the evidence.”
Cash flow. Documentation. Existing obligations. Use of funds. Business performance. Repayment capacity.
And behind those records, the systems and governance that help make the business reliable.
In many small businesses, some of these are still a work in progress.
🔴The Debt Before Debt Test™
This is why I developed what I call the Debt Before Debt Test™.
It creates a pause between “They’re offering me money” and “I should take it.”
It asks you to examine the purpose,
Evidence,
Full borrowing cost,
Repayment timing,
Downside risk and
Effect on your next capital decision.
Sometimes the evidence will say yes.
Sometimes not yet.
Sometimes the smartest capital decision may be no.
The important thing is that the decision comes from evidence rather than emotion.
🔴Better You Cry Now Than Cry Later
By now I’m probably sounding like the Grinch. I get it.
But a lecturer of mine used to say:
“Better you cry now than cry later.”
I’d rather you discover now that the numbers don’t work than discover it six months into repayments.
I’d rather you postpone borrowing and correct your pricing. Clean up your records. Improve your margins. Separate your finances. Build more predictable revenue. Or demonstrate demand.
Then return to the capital conversation from a stronger position.
Because here’s what I don’t want you to do:
Your 2026 “Business Tabanca” won’t be soothed with a loan—especially if it will simply create more heartache later.
A loan can finance capacity.
It can bridge a genuine timing gap.
It can help a healthy business capture an opportunity.
But if the underlying problem is still sitting there after the money arrives, you haven’t financed the solution.
You’ve financed the problem.
So before you sign because the bank said yes, ask one more question: Should my business say yes?
That may be one of the most important fundability decisions you make before 2027.
🔴Before You Borrow
I’ve created the complimentary Debt Before Debt Test™ to help you work through that decision on paper.
If you’re already a subscriber, it accompanies this edition.
Use it with your actual records and proposed loan terms.
If someone forwarded this article to you, subscribe to my blog and receive the complimentary Debt Before Debt Test™.
You’ll also receive my future articles on the structures, evidence and capital decisions that help businesses become fundable.
So bring your ambition.
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