August 25, 2023
The change is here in the financial system. The Caribbean is getting it on all sides, but are failing to embrace the good side and are intent on focusing on the side that is dying out.
The offshore financial services sector the way we knew it in the 1970s and 1980’s is gone. It’s dead. It will not develop into a fully developed financial marketplace anymore. The OECD and EU are ensuring that the rules are changing at every turn. This financial services sector will never be stable under the current paradigm of offshore bank accounts, dummy corporations and secrecy.
However, while that is dying out, the new paradigm is financial technology aka “Fin-Tech” and how it is developing in the world. The Caribbean and Central America should be the first and foremost region to embrace this new change wholeheartedly.
We are not only just talking about credit card machines, point of sales systems and scanners at the grocery store, but also digital currencies, online payment systems, digital wallets and blockchain technology. Where this will turn, nobody knows? But we know that it is a real part of the economy now. We must continue to facilitate where the money is flowing.
Alas, many of us don’t even have debit cards, let alone appreciate that Blockchain technology is not as sophisticated as it sounds, but only becomes complicated when people pass this step and jump straight to cryptocurrency.
We will be dragged along, as usual, to the next step. The leaders in the dying financial services industry should be in a keen position to appreciate the change on all sides and try to encorporate it into their regime. But, most of them are still crying over what the OECD and EU are doing to their poor little safe space.
May God be with us all.