The Tribune

By NATARIO MCKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A former Financial Services Minister has admitted that Bahamians have “lost our way” and become “too comfortable” in the financial services sector, adding: “We need to invest in ourselves and our industry.”

Ryan Pinder, the Graham Thompson & Company partner, told a recent Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) Millennials Society panel discussion: “Our greatest strength is our people and our greatest weakness is our people.

“We have successfully, as a small island nation on the doorstep of the United States, built a very competent and knowledgeable financial services industry, and we have seen the level of Bahamian professionals in the industry rise up the ranks to the very highest levels in some of the largest institutions present in this country.”

  Mr Pinder continued: “We have also lost our way and gotten too comfortable. We do not invest in ourselves as professionals, for the most part.

“We do not pay attention to the changing landscape and figure out what is that landscape, and how we sell from within that landscape. Instead, we have a tendency to sit on our laurels too many times. That is not how we are going to sell and develop this industry. The only way we are going to succeed is to take that knowledge and experience, and all those generations of development in this industry, look forward and invest in ourselves.”

Mr Pinder said the Bahams’ traditional high net worth individual clients wanted services that extended far beyond just a bank to deposit their money.

“They need family offices, they need efficiencies, good customer service, someone who is going to get on a telephone call at midnight, because they are on the other side of the world, to talk competently and advise them,” he added.

“They are going to need someone who doesn’t work 9am to 5pm, and they are going to need someone  who is knowledgable and understands the landscape in which they operate. They need an environment that is efficient and less bureaucratic, and that is going to create the way forward.

“We are  a private wealth jurisdiction. Why can’t we be a trade finance jurisdiction, considering all of the shipping lanes that come through this country from the greatest economies in the world? Why can’t we be more institutional? We have very limited pension funds and  hedge funds”

Mr Pinder said there had been much concern about so-called ‘de-risking’ and the loss of correspondent banking relationships.

“We don’t have the volume of  transactions to make those banks feel secure and say that the Bahamas is an asset,” he said. “Right now, the Bahamas is not an asset. There is not enough money being made off of the deposits and the transactions that flow through the Bahamas.

“We fix that by evolving our industry. We need to invest in ourselves and our industry. There is real competition out there and those jurisdictions, if they figure it out first, they certainly aren’t going to tell us what the answer is.

“We have to stop being so hyper-competitive and everybody give just a little bit to figure out the way forward. It has to be a collective we. We have the minds to do it; we have the energy to do it.”