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.