The Tribune

BY ANNELIA NIXON

TRIBUNE BUSINESS REPORTER

anixon@tribunemedia.net

THE BAHAMAS is looking to turn its growing fintech ecosystem into a pipeline for homegrown businesses, with the University of The Bahamas (UB), OKX Bahamas and the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) partnering to provide entrepreneurs with mentorship, capital and technical support.

The partnership culminated in a live pitch competition on Thursday, featuring five finalists selected from 114 ventures that applied to the UB Ignite and OKX FinTech Venture Pitch Incubator.

Business strategy and operations director at OKX, Dino Cartwright, said the initiative reflects the company’s belief that the next generation of fintech companies can emerge from markets outside traditional global technology centres.

“OKX is partnering on this incubator because we believe the future of fintech won’t be built in only one or two global capitals. It will be built everywhere talent and ambition meet the right support,” he said.

Mr Cartwright said the programme gave entrepreneurs an opportunity to test and refine their ideas through several weeks of mentorship, rather than simply preparing a pitch.

“What you see on stage tonight isn’t a pitch deck rehearsed once and repeated,” he said. “It’s the product of real mentorship and real iteration.”

The top three finalists were offered a combined package of cash and professional support, with the winner receiving $10,000 along with $7,500 in mentorship and advisory services. The second-place winner received $7,500 in cash and $5,000 in mentorship and advisory services, while third place received $5,000 and $2,500 in professional support.

Keturah Babb-Higgs, Executive Director, UB Ignite, said 114 ventures applied to participate, with 27 ultimately selected for the incubator programme. Those participants received guidance, mentorship and business development training, while gaining access to potential initial funding to help advance their ventures.

She said the programme is designed around the belief that Bahamians have the talent and ambition to build businesses, but require the infrastructure, mentorship, capital and technical guidance to turn ideas into sustainable enterprises.

The initiative is also intended to expand opportunities beyond New Providence. Ms Babb-Higgs said UB Ignite began in Grand Bahama but has since expanded across the country through its virtual programming. Applicants came from Grand Bahama, Abaco, Inagua, Exuma and New Providence.

“Fintechs don’t just benefit us globally, but they benefit us because we’re an archipelago,” she said, noting that technology can allow people across the Family Islands to participate more readily in the financial sector.

The push comes as the government seeks to position the Bahamas as a competitive jurisdiction for fintech and digital asset businesses. OKX Bahamas chief executive Herman Loedolff said the company’s participation is not primarily about promoting its products or cryptocurrency, but about exposing Bahamian entrepreneurs to opportunities within the fintech sector. He pointed to the country’s regulatory framework as an important advantage for entrepreneurs seeking to establish and scale fintech businesses.

“The regulatory frameworks, especially from the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, they are very pro innovation,” Mr Loedolff said, adding that the framework is intended to support innovation while encouraging responsible and sustainable business development.

He also announced that OKX and other industry participants are in the final stages of establishing a Digital Asset Association of The Bahamas, which he said would focus on education, innovation and promoting the country as a jurisdiction for digital asset businesses.

For UB president Robert Blaine, the initiative represents a shift in the role of higher education from simply preparing students for employment to helping create entrepreneurs and owners of capital.

“UB Ignite is an innovation arm for the university, which expands our outreach to the country’s current and future entrepreneurs,” Mr Blaine said.

He said the university wants to ensure Bahamians have more avenues to become “owners of capital,” with partnerships such as the one with OKX helping to provide those opportunities.

Innovation Minister Sabastian Bastian said the number of ventures entering the programme demonstrates that there is already significant entrepreneurial appetite in the country.

“Twenty seven Bahamian ventures entered this programme,” he said. “Twenty seven groups of Bahamians looked at the world around them and said, ‘I could build something better.’”

He said the challenge for government and its private and educational partners is now to build an ecosystem capable of converting those ideas into viable businesses.

“The job of the Ministry of Innovation, the job of our government, the job of UB and partners like OKX, is to build ecosystems that allows more of those ideas to become businesses of our nation’s future,” he said.

Mr Bastian argued that the Bahamas already has several building blocks for a fintech economy, including the Sand Dollar, the Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges (DARE) Act framework and the presence of international digital asset companies. The government is also working to modernise the country’s national payments infrastructure, which Bastian said should make transactions across the islands cheaper and more reliable. But he said the ultimate measure of innovation should not be the technology itself, but whether it solves real economic problems for Bahamians.

“Does it make the Bahamians’ life easier,” he said. “Can entrepreneurs get financing? Can it help small businesses get paid faster? And can someone on the Family Island have the same financial opportunities as someone in New Providence?”

Access to capital, he said, remains one of the most significant constraints facing small and medium-sized businesses.

“For small and medium businesses, cash flow is like oxygen,” Mr Bastian said. “Businesses can have customers, they can have orders, they can have tremendous potential, but still suffocate because they cannot get the working capital at the right time.”

He also challenged entrepreneurs to design fintech solutions specifically around the Bahamas’ geography rather than adapting systems built for larger countries. Mr Bastian pointed to potential applications including low-connectivity payments, remote onboarding and disaster-relief systems, as well as digital payment solutions for businesses such as restaurants, straw vendors and tour operators across the Family Islands.

“Inside every one of those problems, there lies a business,” he said.

The government is also working to remove regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship and plans to introduce a national AI and future-skills programme at UB, according to Bastian. The broader objective, he said, is to create an environment in which entrepreneurs can experiment and build while consumers and investors have confidence in the systems supporting them.

For Mr Cartwright, that combination of talent, capital, education and regulatory support is what could ultimately allow Bahamian entrepreneurs to compete beyond the domestic market.