In the latest boost to the Cayman Islands’ largest industry, the Leader of Government Business/Premier Designate Hon McKeeva Bush said his high-powered 12-member Financial Services Council would meet monthly to outline the needs of the private sector.
He also rejected suggestions that appointment to the council of incoming Chairman of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) George McCarthy could confuse his public sector regulatory role with the private sector interests he oversees.
“There is no conflict at all. He is regulatory, but he is widely respected, knowledgeable and he has no business interests,” he said.
“I trust him explicitly with my life and with the financial affairs of this country.”
Deputy Leader of Government Business, Hon Rolston Anglin, echoed Mr Bush, saying he thought the appointment “worked well”.
Having the CIMA Chairman in the council, he said, aided a “clear understanding of what is happening in the industry. He has first-hand knowledge and knows the regulatory environment”.
The council revives a body originally created under the previous People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) administration, intended to supplement the larger – and older – Private Sector Consultative Committee, formed 15 years ago as an advisory body by the Financial Secretary at the time, Mr McCarthy.
After Mr McCarthy became Chief Secretary, however, the committee lapsed into inactivity. A similar fate befell the original Financial Services Council, which suffered from a lack of expertise, according to some observers.
The latest incarnation of the council, according to Mr Anglin, “is a single voice from a broad cross section of the industry. One of the questions has always been who to talk to, and this board and its advice represents about 100 years of experience”.
Mr Bush, who announced the group’s membership on 2 July, will chair the group, although its initial gathering is not until the end of the month.
Council Secretary Paul Byles will be joined by Mr McCarthy; Chairman of the Cayman Islands Financial Services Association (CIFSA) Anthony Travers; PricewaterhouseCoopers Managing Partner Nick Freeland; Law Society President and Maples and Calder Managing Partner Charles Jennings; United Democratic Party Treasurer and Managing Director at Advanced Fund Administration Peter Young; Strategic Risk Solutions Director Seamus Tivnan; CIFSA Vice Chairman, Managing Director of Sul America International Bank and immediate past president of the Cayman Islands Bankers Association Eduardo Silva; HSBC Chief Executive Officer Gonzalo Jalles; KPMG Managing Partner Roy McTaggart; and Admiralty Administration’s Sophia Dilbert.
Mr Bush said council meetings would inform alternate month meetings with the rejuvenated Private Sector Consultative Committee.
“We are starting back with the Financial Services Council. We are expanding it and it will meet once per month to discuss matters of finance that are of interest to the Cayman Islands as an international financial centre,” he said.
“It will advise Government on when and what it needs and how to get it done – and then we will meet every other month with that wider group.”
Mr Bush said it would differ from other financial industry associations because of its tightly focused advisory role.
For example, he said, “the Bankers [Association] has particular interests; CIFSA does a lot of public relations and so on, but the council accesses the broad financial services”.
Mr Anglin said the smaller group “provides a voice for all members of the industry, and gives them a clear space for advice from a single entity”.
Mr Byles said the council was “a more efficient and smaller group, and provides a different forum for people from different industries”.
Calling the council a “positive development”, Mr Travers said the “new administration [was] seeking to re-establish a number of points of contact with the private sector in the financial services industry so that it can develop policy initiatives that are based on relevant and up to date information”.
“Many key players in the industry have felt that the partnership between government and the private sector had suffered in recent years,” he said, pointing to recent CIFSA moves to “advance the interests of the Cayman Islands” seeking to work with government “on the important question of rationalising the public relations initiatives in the most cost-efficient manner”.