The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

TRIBUNE Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

THE BAHAMAS must strike a balance between importing specialised financial services talent and developing its own professionals if it wants to expand its position as a global financial centre, an EY (Ernst & Young) executive asserted yesterday.

LaNiska McSweeney said the country does not currently have sufficient depth of expertise to support every financial services product it may seek to develop, but bringing international professionals into the market could help accelerate knowledge transfer while creating opportunities for Bahamians.

“We could do both,” she said. “Both things can be true at the same time. We can import talent to help uptick what we have here. I work in a global organisation. I have learned from leaders from across the world, and that’s made me a better leader because of the different insights. And one thing I’ve noticed is these people come with contacts. Contacts are what makes financial services run. If they’re not here, they’re not going to refer people here.”

Ms McSweeney, speaking during the Nassau Conference on financial services, focused on the competitiveness of The Bahamas and the country’s position on the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI).

She said the country also needs to identify Bahamian professionals working abroad and determine how their expertise and international connections could be leveraged to strengthen the domestic financial services sector.

“I work with Bahamians that live abroad and are doing huge things globally,” she said. “Do we have a data set that can tell us where all these Bahamians are, and how we can tap into them to help develop our country? I would say that doesn’t exist, but I would say that’s something that we absolutely, as a country, should be looking toward creating.”

Ms McSweeney said the talent question cannot be separated from the broader question of what The Bahamas wants its financial services industry to become. She said the country needs to first determine which financial services products have the greatest potential for growth before deciding what specialised talent it needs and whether that expertise exists locally.

“We hear other regulators talking about growing our insurance businesses, private trust companies,” she said. “Do we have enough actuaries? Do we know how many actuaries are currently in The Bahamas and licensed? Do we have underwriters?

“Do we know what type products we’re going to mention and what type people that we’re going to need? I would venture to say no. We do not have the depth of talent here. We have talent here. A lot of it is in this room. But what happens when this generation of talent moves on or retires?”

Ms McSweeney said the country should consider a system that allows international professionals to enter the market, contribute expertise and train Bahamians, while ensuring that the resulting knowledge remains in the country.

She added that The Bahamas also needs to address what she described as a “measurement gap” caused by a lack of data about the size and depth of its financial services talent pool.

“While we are known for wealth management, private banking, newly, I think we call them PTCs, private trust companies, where is the data to support really what level of expertise we need to transform those industries? What level of expertise we have in our country? Is it local? Is it homegrown? Is it international? Or is it absent? We can’t fix a problem if we don’t know what the causes are, and if we don’t have the data, then we have a huge issue.”

Ms McSweeney said the first step should be to examine which financial services products are growing and which are no longer suited to market demand. “I think we’re doing a lot of things right because we have the strong framework,” she said. “What I see other financial services centres doing better is telling their story.”

Ms McSweeney further argued that opening the sector to more international talent should not be viewed solely as competition for Bahamian professionals.

“We have to have a conversation on the talent,” she said. “A lot of it is not here. We need to open up the industries that have remained closed for so long. That’s restricting growth.

“I’ve heard people say to me, ‘If we open it up, it’s going to take bread out of our own mouths.’ What we don’t understand is, it’s a global world. It’s big enough to feed all of us.”

Ms McSweeney said the objective should be to combine international expertise with a stronger domestic talent pipeline so that Bahamians are positioned to take on increasingly specialised roles as the financial services industry evolves.