PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC –The Trinidad and Tobago government is positioning the country to be a regional leader in digital finance and financial sector transformation as it pioneers a model that could be adopted across the region.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert, addressing a workshop being held under the theme “Advancing the Digital Payment & Financial Inclusion Agenda Across the Eastern Caribbean,” said that Port of Spain has designated the Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (TTIFC) to lead the government’s digital finance agenda.
He said the TTIFC would also seek to develop a coalition of policymakers, regulators, government institutions, and the private sector to promote strategic change across the financial services sector and implement digital payment services across the government.
The workshop here is being coordinated by the European Union (EC) UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS) under the four-year Digital Financial Inclusion Programme.
Imbert told the workshop that the government, through the TTIFC, is driving change in three key areas, namely the advancement of financial inclusion, the acceleration of the digitalization of payments in the public sector, and the development of a FinTech-enablement Ecosystem.
“In all this, accurate, up to date and easily accessible data is essential. Gaps in data availability needed to drive effective strategic efforts, like boosting financial inclusion, must be filled. We need to understand the factual issues so we can design appropriate solutions,” Imbert said.
“In our case, the most recent data on financial inclusion is several years old, and we have therefore decided to launch our first National Financial Inclusion Study.”
He said the TTIFC would facilitate this study, the findings of which will enable a thorough understanding and provide deeper insights across key stakeholder segments, promoting an assessment of the current levels of financial inclusion for citizens as well as the development and collection of data on financial inclusion to inform the National Financial Inclusion Strategy.
He said the study would also seek the identification of existing gaps and barriers that hinder financial inclusion and that the study will be based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) survey administration methodology and comprise indicators from the OECD and World Bank Financial Inclusion studies-Findex.
He said, in addition, the Ministry of Finance has drafted and approved the instructions for using the registered Payment Service Providers Retail Payment Network (PSPRN).
“This would allow revenue collection through a network of agents across the country and aid in providing easier access to government services. These convenient payment locations would touch those persons within the vulnerable groups of society, particularly the unbanked and underbanked. “This initiative is on the heels of the government’s drive to promote its Cashless agenda while ensuring that citizens may have convenient, simple, and secure methods of paying for essential public services.”
Imbert said that digital financial inclusion is a prioritized subset for Trinidad and Tobago, as allocating financing to build digital infrastructure and promoting FinTech will assist financially excluded individuals.
“FinTech enables financial inclusion as it expands on financial technology channel adoption utilizing mobile money accounts and transaction accounts. These can sometimes be great alternatives where financial service providers are insufficient. They also allow easier access to credit as less onerous paperwork is not required compared to traditional financial institutions.”
Imbert said that the TTIFC is working to ensure that all requisite criteria for establishing an active FinTech Innovation Hub are identified and enhanced.
He said the Hub, which will be a collaborative environment with an onsite ecosystem, is envisioned as the showroom for FinTech within Trinidad and Tobago and the region, focusing on the pillars of education, innovation, and acceleration within digital financial services.
“In addition, the goal of the Hub will be to facilitate investment opportunities with a focus on developing local capabilities for export potential.”
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