An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed Vir­tu­al As­sets and Vir­tu­al As­set Ser­vice Providers Bill 2025, which seeks to ban the pur­chase, sale, ex­change, or trans­fer of cryp­tocur­ren­cies, in­clud­ing Bit­coin, un­til De­cem­ber 31, 2027, has drawn sharp crit­i­cism from the lo­cal fin­tech sec­tor.

The draft leg­is­la­tion, now be­fore Par­lia­ment, al­so car­ries penal­ties of up to $5 mil­lion for unau­tho­rised vir­tu­al as­set ac­tiv­i­ty.

The leg­is­la­tion was tabled in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo on Sep­tem­ber 12 and was on the or­der pa­per for last Fri­day’s sit­ting, but was not de­bat­ed. The Bill is sub­ject to amend­ment in both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Mark Pereira, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Z-Labs, said the move risks sti­fling in­no­va­tion and un­der­min­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment at a time when T&T needs to em­brace new fi­nan­cial tech­nolo­gies.

“This is a step back­wards at a time when the en­tire world is mov­ing for­ward in­to the cryp­to realm,” Pereira warned. “We were pre­pared to launch a vir­tu­al as­sets trad­ing plat­form next month, but this bill ef­fec­tive­ly halts that ef­fort un­til 2028.”

Pereira ac­knowl­edged that the tim­ing of the bill is dri­ven by pres­sure from the Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (FATF) leg­is­la­tion, which has giv­en T&T un­til March 2026 to state its po­si­tion on dig­i­tal as­sets.

How­ev­er, he stressed that FATF does not rec­om­mend bans but rather clear reg­u­la­tion and over­sight.

“The bill as it stands doesn’t meet FATF’s re­quire­ments; it doesn’t reg­u­late, it just pro­hibits,” Pereira said.

The Z-Labs founder ar­gued that cryp­to and blockchain tech­nol­o­gy of­fer T&T a path­way to ease its for­eign ex­change short­ages, em­pow­er small busi­ness­es and po­si­tion the na­tion as a re­gion­al fin­tech hub.

In­stead, he cau­tioned, a ban would on­ly push ac­tiv­i­ty fur­ther in­to the black mar­ket, much like ex­ist­ing un­der­ground US dol­lar trad­ing.

“The de­mand will not dis­ap­pear. Peo­ple will con­tin­ue trans­act­ing on­ly with­out safe­guards or over­sight,” he added.

Z-Labs, Pereira high­light­ed, is a blockchain com­pa­ny found­ed in Aus­tralia and lat­er re­lo­cat­ed to Trinidad. He said the com­pa­ny has been in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in lo­cal in­no­va­tion, and the firm runs cod­ing boot camps, co-work­ing spaces for dig­i­tal en­tre­pre­neurs and a cryp­to wal­let de­signed to pro­mote fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion.

Pereira said the bill threat­ens to de­rail five years of work and risks dri­ving young tal­ent and for­eign in­vest­ment abroad.

“Glob­al­ly, fin­tech and cryp­to are the en­gines of tech growth. If we shut this down, we are telling in­vestors we’re not ready,” he said.

Pereira point­ed to best prac­tices in the Ba­hamas, the East­ern Caribbean and even Kenya, where gov­ern­ments have rolled out struc­tured reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works in­stead of bans.

Lo­cal­ly, he said the Fin­Tech As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T has al­so cre­at­ed a vir­tu­al as­set work­ing group, in­clud­ing le­gal and tech­ni­cal ex­perts, that stands ready to col­lab­o­rate with the Cen­tral Bank and pol­i­cy­mak­ers.

He urged the gov­ern­ment to en­gage stake­hold­ers and craft a bal­anced ap­proach that pri­ori­tis­es safe­ty, ed­u­ca­tion and re­spon­si­ble in­no­va­tion. “The youth are ready, the pri­vate sec­tor is ready. We have the tal­ent. What we need now is the po­lit­i­cal will to put for­ward a re­spon­si­ble and in­no­v­a­tive bill that po­si­tions T&T not just as a re­gion­al leader, but as a glob­al play­er in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my.”

When con­tact­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Kennedy Swarats­ingh, said, “I am wait­ing to see the fi­nal ver­sion of the bill.”