The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The deputy prime minister yesterday pledged that the Government’s revamped investment promotion and approvals agency will be “transparent” and “innovative” in how it handles applications from digital assets providers.

Chester Cooper, also minister for tourism, investment and aviation, told the Crypto Bahamas conference: “When we came to office, the Prime Minister sent a signal to the world that we are open for business. Since then, we have been charting a course to make it easier to do business in The Bahamas and we’ve been very deliberate.

“We’ve been very focused on building the framework. We have tons of regulations in terms of our legislative environment and our strong infrastructure that’s already in place. Of course, we have a strong tourist industry, which should not be underestimated in things to do, and an environment that’s absolutely pristine when you bring it all together.”

Referring specifically to the Bahamas Investment Authority (BIA), which is to be transformed into the more proactive Invest Bahamas that will seek out investors, Mr Cooper said: “One of the things we try to do in Invest Bahamas and the Bahamas Investment Authority is to be very transparent and be very quick, to be innovative and be very responsive to the needs of the investment community.

“When we do this, it creates energy and this is an exciting time in The Bahamas right now. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to be involved with this process to oversee the significant investment growth at the moment.

“The crypto business, digital asset industry genuinely brought new energy and we have been able to pivot our already-established financial services industry into doing this business. This is working very well for us. The economic impact is significant. And we see great opportunities for our people, as well as our country as a whole.”

Senator Ryan Pinder QC, the attorney general, told the same panel discussion: “Last week, the Government of the Bahamas publicised a policy white paper on digital assets to set the framework of how the country looks as it approaches this sector.

“The Bahamas has been trailblazers in the digital asset industry for a number of years now. We issued the first Central Bank-backed digital currency in the Sand Dollar. We were progressive and innovative in developing a regulatory framework in the Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges (DARE) Act, which created the licensing and regulation for the sector, which was novel at the time. This was in 2020.

Mr Pinder continued: “I think as a country we were very well-placed, and we had learned from our history and we knew the benefit of having to be nimble and having to be reactive to a changing marketplace. But secondly, we understood that the integrity that comes with having a regulated framework was actually a very attractive thing for a fast-growing industry. And especially for those participants in the industry.”

Explaining the benefits of the DARE Act, he added: “With the DARE Act, what we were looking to do is to put a regulatory envelope around all participants within the digital asset business. So certainly we had a licensing regime for service providers, whether that be an exchange or whether that be another type of service provider, such as a digital wallet provider.

“We wanted to have a licensing regime for those types of businesses doing business in The Bahamas. But, secondly, we wanted to also have a framework for coin and token offerings.” The DARE Act is scheduled to be amended before year-end, but Mr Pinder did not foreshadow what the changes will entail.