Nadaleen Singh

The T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre (TTIFC) has signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with Qua­tr­ro Glob­al Ser­vices (QGS) and Caribbean Elec­tron­ic Pay­ments Sys­tems (CEPS)–a ma­jor step to­ward de­vel­op­ment of a fi­nan­cial busi­ness process out­sourc­ing (BPO) in­dus­try in T&T.QGS and CEPS will be work­ing with the TTIFC in a pi­lot project to launch the card pro­cess­ing as­pect of BPO.

BPO is cat­e­gorised in­to back of­fice out­sourc­ing, which in­cludes hu­man re­sources or fi­nance and ac­count­ing, and front of­fice out­sourc­ing, which in­cludes cus­tomer-re­lat­ed ser­vices. such as con­tact cen­tre ser­vices.The sign­ing took place at the TTIFC of­fices, 15th Floor, Tow­er D, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.Speak­ing at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny, TTIFC chair­man Fran­co Siu Chong, said the sign­ing marked a cor­ner­stone in the work of the agency.

"These MOUs em­body the essence of the need for T&T to part­ner with glob­al fi­nance and ac­count­ing BPO providers to dri­ve this thrust. These MOUs are al­so proof that our val­ue propo­si­tion has mer­it for the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial ser­vices BPO com­mu­ni­ty and that TTIFC is on the right track," he said.

In Au­gust, Sco­tia­bank opened its back of­fice op­er­a­tions in Ch­agua­nas to con­sol­i­date its fi­nan­cial ser­vices op­er­a­tions across the East­ern Caribbean. The back of­fice op­er­a­tions cen­tre was named Op­er­a­tions and Shared Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. RBC opened its back of­fice in May,Siu Chong said the TTIFC's mis­sion is to make T&T the pre­mier lo­ca­tion in the West­ern hemi­sphere for fi­nan­cial ser­vices.

"Qua­tr­ro has se­lect­ed T&T as a lo­ca­tion to launch a pi­lot project for card pro­cess­ing, with the ob­jec­tive of scal­ing up in­to a strate­gic card pro­cess­ing cen­tre to sup­port clients in the Caribbean re­gion ini­tial­ly and progress in­to a near shore lo­ca­tion to sup­port clients in North and Latin Amer­i­ca. This cen­tre will em­ploy a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of lo­cal ter­tiary ed­u­cat­ed grad­u­ates," he said.Pres­i­dent of the Bank­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, Lar­ry Nath, said the as­so­ci­a­tion is heart­ened by the de­vel­op­ment.

"I am al­so heart­ened by the fact that it will be an out­let for grad­u­ates and young stu­dents to learn about the in­dus­try. I am hap­py that it is a pi­lot project which means, just as we were hop­ing, it is some very good re­search and de­vel­op­ment go­ing on here as well. Who knows, it might lead to some­thing that it is re­al­ly trans­for­ma­tion­al. We are in sup­port of it."Asked whether the BATT was con­cerned about fraud in the pro­cess­ing of cards, Nath said fraud is a glob­al phe­nom­e­non and pre­ven­tion mea­sures can be im­ple­ment­ed.

Qua­tr­ro is a glob­al ser­vices com­pa­ny of­fer­ing busi­ness and knowl­edge pro­cess­ing ser­vices to or­ga­ni­za­tions seek­ing high­er op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness, greater flex­i­bil­i­ty and low­er op­er­at­ing costs.The com­pa­ny lever­ages its ex­pe­ri­ence as "the pi­o­neers in busi­ness process out­sourc­ing" to of­fer in­no­v­a­tive out­sourc­ing so­lu­tions.

CEPS pro­vides pay­ment pro­cess­ing ser­vices to the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca as well as the Unit­ed State. These ser­vices en­com­pass all types of pay­ment meth­ods in­clud­ing Chip and PIN (EMV) com­pli­ant cards.