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.
