Enhanced Regulatory Regime For The Provision Of International Services

G-7 Finance Ministers have said that in an increasingly integrated global economy – in which policy responsibility still lies mainly with sovereign states – the challenge is to promote global financial stability through national action as well as through enhanced international cooperation. “All countries, together with the international financial institutions and private sector financial institutions, must share this responsibility”.

Although promoting the concept that a sound financial sector in each country is indispensable to the stability of the international financial system as a whole, G-7 Finance Ministers also acknowledge that without a backdrop of a stable international financial system, the financial sectors of countries, particularly the emerging economies, will not realise their growth and development potential. This has been the impetus behind ongoing initiatives to reform the international financial architecture.

On the national level, the compendium of new and amended legislation recently enacted by The Bahamas provides for:

-the effective supervision of the entire financial system, so that all entities engaged in the system are subject to regulation and compliance oversight

-cross-border supervision

-a virtually seamless framework for establishing the identity of all customers of the financial system

-accessibility of this identity in appropriate circumstances

Strengthening of the financial services sector was an overriding objective of the administrative and legal adjustments made during 2000, as was protection of the sector from abuse – the latter made even more necessary by the worldwide increase in the abuse of legal tax avoidance. Effectively, now all institutions and persons providing financial services in and from The Bahamas are required by law to ensure that they are not engaged in or accommodating illegal activities. Combined, these developments have positioned The Bahamas to continue as an international financial center of significance in the world.