Financial rules call for more creativity
Monday August 15 2011 | 07:33 AM

Maya Johnston, Centre Director for Scotia Private Client Group, Barbados and the Caribbean East, has recognised the importance of regulations placed on the financial sector by the Central Bank of Barbados.

However, according to her, some of these restrictions may be challenging the sector’s ability to efficiently handle the specific needs of its high net worth clients. 

Johnson told Business Monday that the regulations have a purpose and “while they are restrictive, they have served Barbados very well in terms of [maintaining] the value of our dollar [and allowing] us as a country a particular level of development, sustainability and standard of living.”

Yet, she stated.. “in terms of persons who have built up a certain [level of] wealth, it does create some challenges, in terms of what do you do with all that liquidity”. 

Johnston explained that for such clients, once they reached a particular level of worth, it was good for them “to be able to protect that [worth] by diversifying where [it is] held”. 

According to her “the fact that so many of our clients are so heavily invested in real estate is because they probably had fewer options in terms of what else could they invest in”.

The Scotia Private Client Manager also stated that she would like to see stock markets within the region get more support from local investors – so as to encourage a more robust market – but conceded that with the world becoming a smaller place everyday, the typical high net worth clients were these days, interested in investment opportunities across the world.

She pointed out that it would be good for us to be able to offer these opportunities equally across the board, regardless of one’s nationality. However, the reality was such that there was a lot of differentiation in terms of what financial services could be offered to clients, based on being resident or non-resident, national or offshore.

Nevertheless, Johnston stated that the Scotia Private Client Group was up to the challenge of working with what is, whilst ensuring optimum client experiences. 

“My mandate is to make sure that... we’ve thought through all of [the client’s] options and that we’ve been as creative as we can – within the regulations – to make sure their needs are well taken care of,” she assured.