An­dre Wor­rell

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Max­ie Cuffie says Gov­ern­ment is firm­ly com­mit­ted to the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre (IFC) to en­sure that T&T be­comes the Caribbean's ma­jor fi­nan­cial hub.

In the fea­ture ad­dress at the open­ing of a three-day con­fer­ence on Ex­plor­ing In­no­va­tion in Trans­ac­tions and Fi­nanc­ing in the Caribbean at the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Cuffie said in­suf­fi­cient progress has been made in de­vel­op­ing the IFC to achieve its man­date.

"This (the IFC) was de­signed with Trinidad and To­ba­go ready to as­sume the lead as the fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal of the re­gion and in so do­ing, ex­pand the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion process," he said.

"Near­ly a decade and an in­ter­ven­ing change in ad­min­is­tra­tion lat­er, it pains me to say that we have not come as far as we dreamt when we start­ed."

The min­is­ters said Gov­ern­ment is in­ten­si­fy­ing its ef­forts in build­ing out the ca­pac­i­ty of the IFC, adding: "To­day, I give the fi­nan­cial com­mu­ni­ty the as­sur­ance that this present ad­min­is­tra­tion will do what is nec­es­sary, what is op­por­tune and what is left to be done to en­sure that the IFC ful­fils the man­date for which it was in­tend­ed, and that Trinidad and To­ba­go as­sumes its place the as fi­nan­cial hub of the re­gion."

On the is­sues of cy­ber and in­for­ma­tion se­cu­ri­ty, Cuffie said ef­fec­tive mea­sures have to be put in place to en­sure in­vestors and cit­i­zen feel con­fi­dent about the sys­tems that ex­ist to pro­tect their in­for­ma­tion.

"The two hall­marks of any de­cent fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor are se­cu­ri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. There is no doubt there­fore that in­creas­ing­ly, greater at­ten­tion will have to be paid to the po­ten­tial threat of cy­ber-crime on the fi­nan­cial sys­tems," he said.

The min­is­ter said re­cent cy­ber threats in T&T high­light in­her­ent vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in cur­rent sys­tems.

"To show how vul­ner­a­ble we are, one on­ly has to re­flect on the re­cent im­pact of one What­sapp voice note, re­peat­ed sev­er­al times, on the op­er­a­tions of sev­er­al malls through­out Trinidad to un­der­stand the po­ten­tial for eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage," he said.

The three day sem­i­nar, a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort be­tween the T&T Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty (TATT), The Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the In­ter­na­tion­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union (ITU), pro­vides stake­hold­ers from var­i­ous sec­tors with crit­i­cal up­dates on de­vel­op­ments across the globe in fi­nan­cial tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal fi­nan­cial ser­vices.

Al­so speak­ing at yes­ter­day's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny were ITU area rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cleve­land Thomas, Eclac rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dil­lion Al­leyne and TATT chair­man Cyn­thia Red­dock-Downes.