The Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion has part­nered with To­ba­go’s Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my to help res­i­dents make smarter, safer in­vest­ment de­ci­sions.

The ini­tia­tive took the form of a pub­lic In­vestor Ed­u­ca­tion Fo­rum on May 28 at the Vic­tor E. Bruce Fi­nan­cial Com­plex in Scar­bor­ough, with a fol­low-up ses­sion for the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Chap­ter of the Cred­it Union League on May 29.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the TTSEC, Kester Guy, told par­tic­i­pants the reg­u­la­tor’s core func­tion is to en­sure a “fair, trans­par­ent, and re­silient se­cu­ri­ties mar­ket – where in­vest­ments are pro­tect­ed and the rights of in­vestors are re­spect­ed.” He said this is achieved not on­ly through reg­u­la­tion but al­so by ed­u­ca­tion.

As part of the ef­fort to ex­pand ac­cess to in­vest­ment knowl­edge, Guy an­nounced a se­ries of ini­tia­tives tar­get­ing youth, women, and the el­der­ly, to be rolled out in con­sul­ta­tion with the Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance, Trade and the Econ­o­my.

Deputy Pro­gramme Co­or­di­na­tor of the Fi­nan­cial Lit­er­a­cy Sec­re­tari­at, Keshon Mor­ton, said fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy should be seen as a sus­tain­able path to wealth cre­ation and a dri­ver of To­ba­go’s econ­o­my. He said the fo­rum aimed to de­mys­ti­fy in­vest­ing by “re­mov­ing fear, jar­gon, and myths.”

Ellen Lewis, the TTSEC’s Di­rec­tor of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, gave an overview of the reg­u­la­tor’s In­vestor Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme, which she said has sig­nif­i­cant­ly evolved since its launch in 2005. The pro­gramme now in­cludes gam­i­fied tools and struc­tured on­line cours­es to make learn­ing more prac­ti­cal and ac­ces­si­ble.

The event was livestreamed and drew a broad au­di­ence in­clud­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly staff, law en­force­ment per­son­nel, and mem­bers of the pub­lic. Pre­sen­ta­tions were de­liv­ered by the TTSEC, the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Om­buds­man, and the Se­cu­ri­ties Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, fo­cus­ing on in­vestor pro­tec­tions un­der the Se­cu­ri­ties Act Chap­ter 83:02.