Alicia Nicholls IMF Deputy Managing Director, Mr. Tao Zhang, gave an interesting and comprehensive speech summarising the “Caribbean response to the Withdrawal of Correspondent Banking” at the Conference on the Withdrawal of Correspondent Banking in Antigua & Barbuda on October 28, 2016. The following realities stood out to me from Mr. Zhang’s speech: Almost 60% […]
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That should have been 1 :49 Pm.
Miller at 1:45pm
You have made it pellucidly clear. I hope you are on the right wave length.
This subject is apparently intended for a few insiders: David, Alicia, Vincent, Bernard and Hal.
It is brought up over and over again, but only as a form of “arm waving”. The scope of the so-called “problem” is not defined, the banks losing their correspondent relationships are not named. There is something ridiculous about claiming our remittances could be threatened by a few regulators, when the Internet is creating many new, cheaper non-traditional ways to send money across international borders.
Alicia is flying all over the hemisphere using up hundred of thousands of dollars of scarce resources “presenting” on the subject ( what a gravy train), but she only offers a few scraps of information to the public. The World Bank is threatening countries across the globe with sanctions, including disconnection from the “global financial system”. How can the global system be a global system if it excludes many Third World countries?
@chad99999
You have posted nonsense and you know it. Have you viewed the video above where a presenter (Allan Wright) from the Central Bank sized the problem?
Did you read the address delivered by deputy IMF Secretary General Zhang?
Are you aware Prime Minister of Antigua Brown heads a Caricom group charged with championing this matter in the international arena?
Step up chad99999!
@ David
Chads view is that it is a surmountable problem. Even a non problem.
@ David October 29, 2016 at 2:36 PM
Poor Chaddie might appear as saddled, albeit it innocently, with a bout of dogged tunnel vision.
But he must be on to something more surreptitiously undermining in the grand scheme of things than superficially meets the eye.
I am sure you have heard about the saying “there is more than one way to skin a cat”.
If we can’t close down their ‘suspect’ offshore tax havens and shelters by politically insensitive means why not undermine their economies by blockading their access to international finance under the guise of fighting money laundering and terrorism?
The Caribbean has always been an arena of ‘underhand’ business dealings. From trading in slaves, contraband, privateering and piracy to modern-day drug trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion.
Why not invite China to set up a banking structure in the English-speaking East Caribbean as they have done with other facets of the economies and societies?
That should attract some geo-political clout to these more and more insignificantly becoming small-island states
@Miller
What a wonderful suggestion, in theory.
Is the One China policy setup? We have several EC countries who have traveled the diplomatic path to Taiwan.
What now!
Only a week ago today at a dinner party I was talking to a Jamaican wealth manager about a related issue. The problem is caused by the long-arm of American regulation. Any financial adviser, bank, insurance company or wealth manager with US clients now face US regulation, even if the clients live outside the US.
Many advisers are now turning down business from US citizens based in the UK since they do not want to deal with the IRS.
About Caricom – and I am a Caricom fan – if they could not deal adequately with Clico (St Lucia had its own settlement, so did the Bahamas, Guyana, Trinidad and Barbados)
Caricom proved its weakness when the chips were down. But it is all we have.
Th problem is that prime ministers of little islands with populations of a relatively few people do not want to lose power and influence by passing that power on to a regional union. The power to hire and fire is too addictive.
What is really backward looking is the BRA not allowing overseas cheques to be paid in. BRA, as a modern body, should allow electronic payment and international cheque payments.
Again, we need a Barbados-domiciled bank. Arthur committed the ultimate betrayal when he sold BNB. Our systemically important financial institutions cannot – should not – be regulated by the Canadians, Americans or Trinidadians. That is the situation at present.
@Hal Austin
You continue to conflate several issue. What is on the table is how does the region respond to the CBR issue and the attendant de-risking. Establishing a local bank maybe a good thing but it will not solve the problem at hand. Bear in mind who makes the rules also.
David
You are the one posting nonsense. I have read the IMF official’s speech and it is nothing but vague generalities.
There is nothing substantial about the other information you have provided on this subject. For example, the black doctor on the video clip leads us into a black hole: This is what he said:
(1) Caribbean banks are not on the FATFs sanctions list. (2) The fines paid by ING, HSBC, Barclays, etc. are for transactions with Africa, the Middle East and Asia. (He calls these big fines — they are not).
(3) International banks may cut off Caribbean banks, not because they are contravening FATF and US banking regulations, but because they do not generate sufficient profits for the international banks.
Therefore, (4) we in the Caribbean must do something. –The good doctor declines to tell us what that something is, so his entire presentation leads nowhere.
This is clearly an exercise in what politicians call “preparing public opinion” to get a rubber stamp for whatever the elites have already decided, and Alicia and the two doctors all talk about the need to “bundle” international financial transactions, under the regulatory guidance of the ECCB of course, so we realize that the elites are using this issue to again promote the bad idea of regional integration. But apart from pushing the drug of integration (which only leads to eventual rule by East Indians), what have we learned here? We are still a group of tiny islands, and even with “bundling”, we may still be deemed unworthy (I.e., insufficiently profitable) clients.
Steupsss
If we have built our societies …and our very lives, around the albino-centric world of these people, what is this great hue and cry about bowing down to their great image?
We went out and committed everything to becoming ‘first world’ … or fully on board with the albino shiite. …from whence now is this concern about abiding with their controls?
It is only obvious that we must bow down and conform to their wishes – or as Nebuchadnezzar required of HIS lackies – across the then world, “…at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.”
Same shiite.
If we do not conform, they will take away our bank account and cast THAT into the fiery furnace – and leave our asses to play with our mock money…
Wuh sweeten goat mout does burn he tail.
The big joke is Vincent’s ‘solution’ – of using CARICOM to address the problem.
Boss, the problem was CREATED by the globalisation drive that based its logic on a one-world economy….. How does a mini Caribbean approach solve anything?
Man …tell the Babylonians to haul…. and let them cast wunna asses in the furnace …and let we see if anyone will come to our aid …like with Shaddy, Meshakkie, and Abed…..
Ha ha ha
Let us celebrate our fifty years of ” independence ” with gay abandon by popping the champagne corks and applauding our limited achievements. Once we have sobered up let’s admit that this independence experiment has ultimately ended in failure.
Perhaps we may be better of living under the union jack.
Bush Tea @ 3:53 PM
Another wise man did say all is vapour. There is nothing new under the sun.
We economist always said money was a token. The Good Book said the love of money is the root of evil.
So shall we get back to the real economy? The one that deals with employment and a fair distribution of the fruits of the economic system?
Alicia, like all of us in this society you have to eat bread too. So do what and where your passion leads you.
@ Exclaimer 4:52 PM,
Who told you the Union Jack want us to live under it.? Last time I read the news the waver of the flag asked us to set up our own Court of Appeal. Some of us still squatting in the corridors.
Your failure mark for Barbados Independence Experiment is too high and unfair. Would you consider a system of Continuous Assessment? There is no way Barbados can fail that test.
China China the new IMF leaders will get these 2 bit crooks in Bim, I hope they dont fall for the DBLP tricks,They will now have to deal with COW and BIZZY before the new Banking get them all in the PANAMA PAPERS, Fraud and Ponzi is now under attack ,
Bush Tea October 29, 2016 at 3:53 PM #
You of all people should know……in unity lies strength……
David,
There is no conflating. There is the theory and there is the working at the coal face. The one thing about the City of London is that people are generous with their knowledge. Caricom has failed and our lawyer/politicians and the media do not fully understand financial services.
To be honest, I am now retired and do not want to relive the arguments and discussions of 2007/8. The world has moved on, even if Caricom is now dealing with those issues.
@Alicia
The other point we didn’t fully ventilate is the recommendation that the small indigenous banks must consolidate to create scale to make the transaction more attracted for the big banks.
David October 31, 2016 at 10:20 AM #
We have to forget about big banks,I agree with the consolidation of the indigineous banks and a single currency at the ECD peg…..we then need to find a way to padlle our own canoe through the shark infested waters of the international banking world.
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