GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai has called for a bal­anced ap­proach to reg­u­lat­ing the fast-grow­ing vir­tu­al as­sets sec­tor, warn­ing that while dig­i­tal fi­nance presents sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for eco­nom­ic growth and fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, it al­so brings risks that must be care­ful­ly man­aged.

Howai made the re­marks while de­liv­er­ing open­ing com­ments at the Re­search Re­view Sem­i­nar 2026 pan­el dis­cus­sion on vir­tu­al as­set ser­vice providers, host­ed by the Cen­tral Bank on Thurs­day. Stake­hold­ers ex­am­ined the evolv­ing role of dig­i­tal as­sets and their im­pli­ca­tions for the fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

The dis­cus­sion comes against the back­drop of the pas­sage of the Vir­tu­al As­sets and Vir­tu­al As­set Ser­vice Providers Act, 2025, which es­tab­lished a reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for vir­tu­al as­sets and vir­tu­al as­set ser­vice providers in T&T. Par­lia­ment passed the leg­is­la­tion in No­vem­ber 2025.

Ad­dress­ing par­tic­i­pants, Howai said the rapid growth of dig­i­tal as­sets, to­kenised fi­nan­cial prod­ucts and emerg­ing pay­ment tech­nolo­gies is trans­form­ing how in­di­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es ac­cess fi­nan­cial ser­vices and in­ter­act with the fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

“These in­no­va­tions have the po­ten­tial to in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy, ex­pand fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, and cre­ate new av­enues for eco­nom­ic growth and en­tre­pre­neur­ship,” he said.

How­ev­er, Howai stressed that pol­i­cy­mak­ers, reg­u­la­tors and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions must re­main fo­cused on is­sues such as fi­nan­cial in­tegri­ty, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, con­sumer pro­tec­tion and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty as they seek to har­ness the ben­e­fits of tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion.

“Is­sues such as fi­nan­cial in­tegri­ty, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, con­sumer pro­tec­tion, and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty must re­main at the fore­front of our dis­cus­sions as we seek to un­lock the ben­e­fits of tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion while man­ag­ing its as­so­ci­at­ed risks,” he said.

The Gov­er­nor not­ed that the re­gion has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed its abil­i­ty to adapt to tech­no­log­i­cal change, but said the chal­lenge is to cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment that en­cour­ages in­no­va­tion while pre­serv­ing the trust, se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty on which fi­nan­cial sys­tems de­pend.

Ac­cord­ing to Howai, achiev­ing that bal­ance would re­quire col­lab­o­ra­tion among reg­u­la­tors, in­dus­try par­tic­i­pants, pol­i­cy­mak­ers and re­searchers, as well as the de­vel­op­ment of reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works that are pro­por­tion­ate, ef­fec­tive and for­ward-look­ing.

He al­so chal­lenged pan­el­lists to con­sid­er three key is­sues: what reg­u­la­tors and reg­u­lat­ed en­ti­ties need from each oth­er to sup­port in­no­va­tion; how the dig­i­tal di­vide can be bridged to en­sure tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ment pro­motes in­clu­sion; and how emerg­ing threats such as fraud and cy­ber­crime can be ad­dressed.

“The dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of fi­nance is al­ready un­der­way,” Howai said, adding, “Our shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to en­sure that in­no­va­tion con­tributes to sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment while safe­guard­ing the in­tegri­ty and re­silience of our fi­nan­cial sys­tem.”

Speak­ing on the pan­el, Ky­lene Dow­den, di­rec­tor of le­gal ser­vices at the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, said what is need­ed is to fos­ter trust and sta­bil­i­ty in the rapid­ly evolv­ing vir­tu­al as­sets sec­tor.

She ar­gued that a ro­bust reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work should be built on three key pil­lars: risk un­der­stand­ing, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, and ef­fec­tive co­op­er­a­tion be­tween reg­u­la­tors and pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to Dow­den, un­der­stand­ing the risks as­so­ci­at­ed with vir­tu­al as­set prod­ucts and ser­vices is fun­da­men­tal to pro­tect­ing both con­sumers and ser­vice providers.

“We need to be able to un­der­stand the types of prod­ucts and ser­vices that we of­fer to the pub­lic and take ef­fec­tive mea­sures to im­ple­ment con­trols that would pro­tect not on­ly the pub­lic but the vir­tu­al as­set ser­vice providers from the oc­cur­rence of those risks,” she said.

Dow­den not­ed that ef­fec­tive reg­u­la­tion would es­tab­lish the pa­ra­me­ters need­ed for firms to im­ple­ment safe­guards and re­duce the like­li­hood of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty or oth­er threats with­in the sec­tor.

She al­so stressed the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship and over­sight of trans­ac­tions.

“Hav­ing a sec­tor that is trans­par­ent with its ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship and who has con­trol over the trans­ac­tions that the vir­tu­al as­set ser­vice provider is ac­tu­al­ly un­der­tak­ing gives the pub­lic the con­fi­dence to know who ex­act­ly is in con­trol,” she said.

Such trans­paren­cy, she added, would help re­as­sure con­sumers that crim­i­nal ac­tors are not ex­ploit­ing vir­tu­al as­set plat­forms or the funds en­trust­ed to them.

Her re­marks were echoed by pres­i­dent of the Fin­Tech As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Alexan­der Gafoor, who wel­comed the en­gage­ment be­tween reg­u­la­tors and the fi­nan­cial tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor.

Ref­er­enc­ing Dow­den’s com­ments, he said on­go­ing di­a­logue be­tween reg­u­la­tors and in­dus­try par­tic­i­pants is nec­es­sary to de­vel­op a frame­work that bal­ances pub­lic in­ter­est with com­mer­cial in­no­va­tion.

Gafoor said the as­so­ci­a­tion is hope­ful that the col­lab­o­ra­tion now tak­ing place would pave the way for a mod­ern and com­pre­hen­sive le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing vir­tu­al as­sets and re­lat­ed tech­nolo­gies.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that ex­ist­ing leg­isla­tive pro­pos­als may not ad­dress every is­sue, he said they rep­re­sent an im­por­tant first step.

“While the cur­rent bill isn’t per­fect, it gets us mov­ing and I know a more sub­stan­tial frame­work is in de­vel­op­ment which we will have the plea­sure of re­view­ing from the per­spec­tive of builders and those in the space,” he said.