Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox has met with the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) to strate­gise on pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures to al­le­vi­ate fraud­u­lent cheques in the sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from BATT as there con­tin­ues to be fraud­u­lent cheques in cir­cu­la­tion Cox con­vened a sec­ond meet­ing with BATT on Mon­day.

In at­ten­dance were BATT’s pres­i­dent Richard Down­ie, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Sco­tia­bank Gayle Pa­zos, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Ansa Bank Kath­leen Daly, Head of Re­tail Bank­ing at First Cit­i­zens Kurt Headley and oth­er se­nior bank­ing of­fi­cials.

The ex­ec­u­tive team rep­re­sent­ing the Min­istry were Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries Jacque­line John­son and Sheila Seecha­ran, as well as Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries - Jas­mine Pas­cal and Wendy Guy-Her­nan­dez.

“The meet­ing was con­vened to strate­gise on pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures to al­le­vi­ate fraud­u­lent cheques in the sys­tem as well as es­tab­lish­ing cre­ative mech­a­nisms in which both the Min­istry and the Banks could fa­cil­i­tate the ease of do­ing busi­ness for our vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens. The meet­ing al­so pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss arrange­ments for grant re­cip­i­ents to re­ceive their fund­ing through di­rect de­posit there­by re­duc­ing fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties,” a re­lease from the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Cox, “The Min­istry makes con­tin­u­ous ef­forts to en­sure that mean­ing­ful so­lu­tions are cre­at­ed to safe­guard its clients, as there are high in­ci­dents of fraud and stolen cheques. In this re­gard, the Min­istry con­tin­ues to en­cour­age per­sons to sign up for Di­rect De­posit.”

“The Gov­ern­ment is al­so work­ing with the Cen­tral Bank of T&T to in­tro­duce Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cies e.g. elec­tron­ic wal­let which will fa­cil­i­tate those who do not have an ac­count with the Com­mer­cial Banks. In con­clu­sion, both par­ties agreed to work­ing close­ly to­geth­er to en­sure that no one is left be­hind,” the min­istry stat­ed.