The Cen­tral Bank’s de­ci­sion to grant Pay­wise a li­cense to pro­vide e-mon­ey is a pos­i­tive step for fi­nan­cial in­no­va­tion in the re­gion.

Dal­ton Fowles, Mas­ter­card’s Coun­try Man­ag­er for Ja­maica and Trinidad and To­ba­go said the de­ci­sion would en­cour­age the growth of fin­tech in the coun­try.

“I would say it’s more than just the right time,” said Fowles dur­ing MC Talks by Mas­ter­card as the brand in­tro­duced it­self to lo­cal me­dia at Re­gus, In­vaders Bay Port- of-Spain.

The Cen­tral Bank an­nounced on Au­gust 10, that Pay­wise would be au­tho­rised to is­sue e-mon­ey from Sep­tem­ber 1.

“I think the time is per­fect. We have had lots of in­ter­ac­tions with the reg­u­la­tors. I think it’s im­por­tant in terms of ac­cel­er­at­ing growth. I think it’s the right move by the reg­u­la­tor. I think the reg­u­la­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment is be­ing de­vel­oped in a man­ner that is very con­ducive to in­no­va­tion and we are ful­ly in sup­port of that, and it is on­ly a mat­ter of time I be­lieve that we would find a lot more ap­provals are com­ing,” he said.

Fowles stressed that Mas­ter­card was look­ing for­ward to part­ner­ing with Fin­tech in­no­va­tors, and cur­rent­ly has six signed part­ner­ships across the re­gion with Fin­tech de­vel­op­ments.

He said such moves were wel­comed to fur­ther de­vel­op the Fin­tech space, which is cur­rent­ly un­der­served.

“You re­al­ly want that lo­cal ex­per­tise be­ing de­vel­oped. One of the things we recog­nise is the lack of in­no­va­tion in the re­gion. While we have seen an evo­lu­tion for em­brac­ing elec­tron­ic pay­ments in the re­gion, we still do not have the right ac­cep­tance for it,” Fowles stressed.

Mas­ter­card’s ar­rival in Trinidad and To­ba­go is part of the com­pa­ny’s dri­ve to gain one bil­lion users by 2025.