JAMAICA EYES FINANCIAL SERVICES!
Jamaica must not become an ‘al a carte’ financial centre. It must cultivate a niche in the global financial system and leverage that niche to become a world leader
Nassau, NP, The Bahamas
During the tenure of Hon Bruce Golding MP - Prime Minister as then he was - I was in negotiations to frame, design and implement a financial centre in Jamaica.
I won’t detail my advice here.
But having advised a dozen or so governments - including the Swiss Private Bankers Association and (believe it or not, the Haitian government - on financial centres), there are some general points to be made.
- 1. Jamaica must not follow the Caribbean model of low grade tax arbitrage
- 2. Jamaica cannot follow the Swiss model of global custody or the Swiss wealth management model as it lacks the corollary sociology for that
- 3. Jamaica can adopt BVI’s model of an international company centre, if Jamaica have the right treaties in place, together with an advanced digital on-boarding platform
- 4. Jamaica can leverage its world best performing Stock Exchange (although, frustratingly, it lacks an index fund), together with its currency that may give it a pricing advantage
- 5. Jamaica should have established a Jamaican Sovereign Fund - as I advised - which is another leverage point to domesticate its international investments
- 6. Jamaica should have leveraged Port Antonio as a luxury retirement zone, which would be generative to its financial centre ambitions. In my view, Port Antonio is the most prominent example of under investment, and delayed opportunity in the Caribbean followed by lack of family island development in The Bahamas.
I could go on…but you get the point. Yet, there are further considerations which I advised:
- a. Jamaica must establish “The Jamaican International Financial Centre” (JIFC) as a location (a square mile in Port Antonio), and as a free trade zone in financial services
- b. Jamaica will require for this, an Assistant Attorney General for the JIFC and an Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for the JIFC.
- c. Jamaica will require an International Arbitration Centre within the JIFC
- d. Jamaica will have to remove immigration requirements for global professionals in the JIFC.
- e. Jamaica will have to establish its own Global Investment Grade Insurance products and establish an Actuarial Association for the JIFC
- f. Jamaica will have to appoint a Secretary General for the JIFC
- g. Jamaica will have to establish a JIFC Research Centre
- h. Jamaica should - having done the above - should lead the world’s international financial centres in establishing an ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRES - as I’ve advised for 25 years now - headquartered in Jamaica.
I’ll leave those general points there now.
Finally, Jamaica must not become an ‘al a carte’ financial centre. It must cultivate a niche in the global financial system and leverage that niche to become a world leader; not merely claim to be a world leader…but a proven leader by the scale of global transactions.
Failing these prerequisites, Jamaica would not be a financial centre. Like most others, it would be a jurisdiction that offers financial services until blacklisted; a mere bumbling capitulator as so many financial services jurisdictions have become; signing onto unconstitutional processes such as FATF and CFATF protocols - which have no basis in international law, as they nor the OECD are international organisations established by multilateral agreements with dispute resolution protocols.
I pray not..!
