The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A web shop operator yesterday dismissed that the industry is a threat to the Bahamian financial services sector, arguing: “Our Know Your Customer (KYC) is bar none higher than any”.

The operator, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Tribune Business: “They never even talked about us when we got blacklisted. We are a scapegoat. When things are going bad for the country, people look for a number of things to blame.

“Banks around the world are closing down because it is too expensive to do KYC for international people. We cannot serve anyone else but Bahamians that have to bring in proof of identification, and proof of where there they live and they have to take pictures. Our KYC is bar none higher than any. If you compare our KYC regulations with any industry, be it insurance or banks, we are way above them.”

The operator contradicted Dionisio D’Aguilar, the minister of tourism with responsibility for gaming, who recently said web shops posed a risk to the financial sector through acting as unlicensed, unregulated money transfer businesses.

And a recently-released International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper said: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that international correspondent banks are uncomfortable providing services to domestic banks that do business with either money transmission businesses (MTBs) or online gaming operators (so called web shops), which are perceived as a higher anti-money laundering/counter terror financing risk.”

As to the proliferation of web shops, and the possibility of increased taxes, the operator told Tribune Business: “We pay multiple times more than any industry in this country. We’re the highest taxed industry in the Bahamas bar none. No one yearly as much fees as we pay.

“We pay $30,000 per location. The more we proliferate, the more the government collects. Why doesn’t the Government say where the fees go. We had to pay $5 million each as a penalty, and then we had to pay five years’ back taxes. We have never not paid our share in my opinion. We don’t get concessions. There is no other industry that can claim that it is 100 per cent Bahamian.”