The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Investments and Securities Business Association’s (BISBA) president says Fin-Tech will “catapult” the financial services industry in 2022.

Andrew Rolle, told Tribune Business yesterday the work the Securities Commission of The Bahamas has been doing has been “excellent” alongside the Bahamas Financial Services Board through its various working group.

Together, he said, they have done a “great job” in helping to innovate the local financial services product.

Mr Rolle said: “I believe that the DARE Act - the Digital Asset and Registered Exchanges Act - will be the Act that saves the financial services sector because you will see a number of Fin-Tech firms coming in.

“We have seen what FTX Digital already, which is the third largest exchange in the world, has done to the economy in the hiring Bahamians at the senior level, they are buying property, they are renting and spending and they are one of several Fin-Tech firms that will come to The Bahamas.”

When pressed on whether any other firms are about to enter the Bahamian market, Mr Rolle did not disclose as a few of them are “pending approval” but confirmed he is presently engaged with one now and it will be announced in the near future.

“There is another Bahamian Fin-Tech group that has gotten into the space and they are moving at full speed,” he said.

“So, the year ended well. I think we have seen the beginning of how the industry will be staked out with the emergence of Fin-Tech and private investment firms that will really catapult the Bahamian economy especially from the financial services sector in 2022. ”

Mr Rolle is guarded, however, on best practice for the industry regarding Fin-Tech like cryptocurrency, but sees it as the successor to fiat currency. He added: “The volatility of cryptocurrency and their value will continue to fluctuate because we haven’t found a mechanism with any degree of certainty to identify the fundamentals of them. The way we will value them has yet to be determined. We cannot use the old way of valuing stocks or bonds the same way you would value a digital asset.

“It’s very embryonic and it is still in its formation stages and only through time we will be able to really evaluate them. You can ignore it to your peril, but if you have $10 to invest, I think you should put $1 into a digital asset.”

Arguing that criticism against digital assets are unfounded and time will bear out the value of the industry, he pointed to how back in the 1990s the internet was seen as a “strange device” that would never fully be integrated into the world economy the way it has been.

“People laughed at the internet, now everyone is on the internet. You can’t do business unless it is on the internet,” he said.

“So, we have revolutionized the way we communicated by emails and by other forms and cellular phones and what not. We have revolutionized the way we travel, so why is it we can’t revolutionize the way we look at money?”