The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

NEWLY-appointed minister of financial services and investments, Ryan Pinder, said yesterday that the industry needed to be solidified and products improved, with the second phase OECD Peer Review an immediate concern.

Speaking with Tribune Business after his swearing-in yesterday, Mr Pinder said: "The financial services industry has a few challenges that have to be faced immediately.

"You have some Peers Reviews on our industry from the OECD, from which we have to ensure that we go forward and are compliant as a country.

"We also need to solidify the industry. We have dropped in the rankings over the past five years. We need to solidify that industry so that we grow it once again. We need to try to chart out a course to expand the industry into new areas, so that Bahamians are given well-paying jobs and even entrepreneurial, as well as ownership, opportunities in the industry."

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) second phase peer review of the Bahamas is due to take place this summer, and will focus on how well this nation has implemented the law and regulatory system designed to effect compliance with its tax transparency and information exchange demands.

Mr Pinder, meanwhile, added that the ease of doing business in the Bahamas needed to be improved.

He said: "I think the ease of doing business within the financial services industry is important. Being able to, as the executive of the country, coordinate with the regulators for the promotion of the financial services industry is a must.

"We must be able to ensure that you can do business easily in the country and do it compliantly. It is a competitive marketplace in financial services right now, and we have to be the best. That's going to be the focus. The focus is excellence, and we have to be excellent."

Mr Pinder added: "I think we need to look at some of our products. Look at our fund industry, look at our insurance industry and see how we can, instead of being less competitive, be more competitive and be ahead of our competitors in those industries.

"I think we do a very good job at wealth management, offshore banking, and we want to excel in insurance, investment funds. Those are some of the things, from a product point of view, that we are going to have to work on. I have an idea of what the private sector is thinking, the products they want and the cooperation they need from the Government."