Bahamas Legislative Process Is Too Slow, Says BFSB
by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London
04 December 2003

Wendy Warren, executive director of the Bahamas Financial Services Board, has urged the government to speed up the legislative process in bringing new financial laws to the market place, warning that the length of time taken to enact new rules could drive business to rival jurisdictions.

"Legislation has not moved as quickly as we would like” said Ms Warren, highlighting as an example the e-commerce bills, upon which work began back in 1999. "We saw the Securities Industry Act tabled and passed this year. Work on that began in 2001. So what we would like to see is that time line shortened because our time to market is critical."

She warned that: "If the Bahamas is competing with other centres, we have to find a mechanism of decreasing our time to market because to the extent that we are perceived to be slower to respond to client needs, like any other business, clients will factor that into their decisions.”

The BFSB executive director also observed how rival jurisdictions in the region, notably Bermuda and the Cayman Islands were "extremely efficient" in the manner in which they delivered new financial legislation.

"They really set the standard for the marketplace," she observed.

"Secondly, Cayman particularly has an effective marketing strategy. The brand is well known and they approach it in two ways, one in the exporting of their firms into other jurisdictions and secondly, they are at every conference. Sometimes there are up to 60 people from Cayman at a conference. They travel frequently," Ms Warren noted.

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