And as far as transparency goes, like any other financial institution SSB must invest contributors' money to grow the fund.
You may have seen them publicize proposed loans - which is a statutory requirement.
But, when these loans are to private businesses - the scrutiny can be overpowering. The CEO says that this often causes interested parties to back out at the last minute.
Deborah Ruiz, CEO SSB
"It's not so much- we have 100 million liquid cash that we need to invest and put to work but part of the process right now is legislated by law how we can do it it's not independently we can say how we are going to do this so we advertise that we are open for business and we are looking for viable proposals but it has to go through a process as you know because of the framework. We come in an assess your ability to even make the loan that you qualify and you meet all your legal obligations, your due diligence assessment is done and then we publish in the public domain and based on feedback if it clears that then we are able to go through with the investment so it has to go through that process. Which can be a bit bureaucratic in terms of the turnaround time and of course it opens businesses up to public scrutiny and some businesses who are very viable don't want to go through that so that has been in a stumbling block for us in terms of we have started the conversation and when they find out that it requires this public scrutiny of them they don't want so that has been a stumbling block honestly."
As we said, the awareness events will be quarterly.
