Sean Nero

It is time for re­gion­al providers of in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy to de­vel­op more in­no­v­a­tive se­cu­ri­ty so­lu­tions to help strength­en the bank­ing sys­tem, says Karen Dar­basie, Group CEO of First Cit­i­zens.

She said the re­cent ar­res­ta of se­nior Fi­fa of­fi­cials in Zurich, Switzer­land on bribery and rack­e­teer­ing charges brought by the Unit­ed States Jus­tice De­part­ment and Swiss au­thor­i­ties shows how the bank­ing sys­tem can be ma­nip­u­lat­ed to help per­sons achieve wealth il­le­gal­ly. She ex­pressed con­cern that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions had point­ed at trans­ac­tions in­volv­ing three lo­cal banks.

Dar­bar­sie said Caribbean-based IT com­pa­nies must give pri­or­i­ty to de­vel­op­ing ro­bust, world class se­cu­ri­ty plat­forms to guard against wire fraud and oth­er as­so­ci­at­ed risk. She is chal­leng­ing lo­cal and re­gion­al in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy providers to gen­er­ate and de­vel­op tech­nol­o­gy­to pro­tect the bank­ing and fi­nan­cial sec­tor and she wants ter­tiary lev­el in­sti­tu­tions to play a ma­jor role in this trans­for­ma­tion.

"Those of you who read the in­dict­ment in the cur­rent Fi­fa scan­dal would have read that monies were laun­dered through some of the largest in­ter­na­tion­al banks in the world. These banks have the most so­phis­ti­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms, yet it was dif­fi­cult to stay ahead of the game. Con­sid­er then the cost to re­gion­al banks of en­sur­ing that we too have the best tech­nol­o­gy in place to deal with these is­sues and at a cost that we can af­ford," she said.

The Fi­fa scan­dal has shown that even though the large ma­jor­i­ty of the trans­ac­tions not­ed in the in­dict­ment took place in in­ter­na­tion­al banks, three of the T&T banks are be­ing viewed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and re­gret­tably as the or­gan­i­sa­tions re­spon­si­ble for these trans­ac­tions."

Dar­basie said de­vel­op­ing hu­man ca­pac­i­ty in risk man­age­ment and spread­ing that ca­pac­i­ty across the re­gion is one of the ways First Cit­i­zens is seek­ing to ex­pand and di­ver­si­fy the lo­cal econ­o­my to ben­e­fit Cari­com and T&T. In an ef­fort to help small­er fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions strength­en their risk ca­pac­i­ty through the use of ICT, she said, staff at First Cit­i­zens have been criss-cross­ing the is­lands as­sist­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to guard against un­scrupu­lous fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty which could com­pro­mise their core op­er­a­tions.

The bank has al­so al­lowed em­ploy­ees from oth­er in­sti­tu­tions stints in T&T, work­ing with the First Cit­i­zens work­force to boost ca­pac­i­ty."The in­vest­ments by First Cit­i­zens are not meant to pay great div­i­dends overnight, but like any sound in­vest­ment in the de­vel­op­ment of growth ca­pac­i­ty, the in­vest­ment will come to full fruition over a pe­ri­od of time," Dar­basie said.

She said ef­forts to en­sure small­er fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions are bet­ter pro­tect­ed are con­sis­tent con­sis­tent with the bank's broad­er ob­jec­tives in Cari­com. In­vest­ment in Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, St Lu­cia, An­tigua and else­where in the re­gion is ef­fec­tive­ly in­vest­ment in the eco­nom­ic growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in T&T she said, adding that it was the for­mu­la for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, growth and de­vel­op­ment

Dar­basie said First Cit­i­zen's de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish a beach­head in Cos­ta Ri­ca is strate­gic and the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of­fice had start­ed gain­ing mo­men­tum."We are eye­ing the rest of Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca as ar­eas for ex­pan­sion in­to the fu­ture. This out­ward ap­proach by First Cit­i­zens is very sig­nif­i­cant in the con­text where there are lo­cal banks, which af­ter two and three decades of lo­cal­i­sa­tion, re­turned to be­ing sub­sidiaries of for­eign banks.

"First Cit­i­zens is demon­strat­ing that it is pos­si­ble for a lo­cal bank to ex­pand out­ward­ly in­to the re­gion and be­yond and achieve dy­namism and com­pet­i­tive­ness. First Cit­i­zens is par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of such ex­pan­sion as the on­ly in­dige­nous bank in T&T. We ex­pect the First Cit­i­zens mod­el is one that in­dige­nous banks in Cari­com will fol­low," she said.