The Cen­tral Bank is seek­ing to har­monise the In­sur­ance Act with the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act in spe­cif­ic ar­eas re­lat­ing to lim­i­ta­tion of group ex­po­sures and the im­po­si­tion of civ­il mon­ey penal­ties and ad­min­is­tra­tive fines, said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai. "Gov­ern­ment has al­ready been in­volved in en­hanc­ing su­per­vi­sion and strength­en­ing the lo­cal reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for the fi­nan­cial sec­tor, and go­ing for­ward, the Gov­ern­ment will up­grade the reg­u­la­tion and su­per­vi­sion of the in­sur­ance sec­tor and se­cu­ri­ties ser­vices.

"Some of the ini­tia­tives tak­en so far to strength­en the reg­u­la­to­ry process in­clude the cre­ation of a com­mon method­ol­o­gy for com­put­ing the ad­e­qua­cy of re­serves for life and gen­er­al li­a­bil­i­ties," Howai said. "Our lo­cal fi­nan­cial sec­tor is con­sid­ered to be the re­gion­al fi­nan­cial cen­tre for the Caribbean, ac­count­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 per cent of the coun­try's non-en­er­gy gross do­mes­tic prod­uct."

In light of the CL Fi­nan­cial crises and the glob­al fi­nan­cial melt­down, Howai said fi­nan­cial ad­vis­ers have a du­ty to en­sure the un­der­stand the prod­ucts and ser­vices and they ex­plain all the nu­ances and risks to their clients. He was speak­ing yes­ter­day at the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of In­sur­ance and Fi­nan­cial Ad­vis­ers' (TTAIFA) 32nd an­nu­al award cer­e­mo­ny, held at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.