Improved regulatory framework a priority for Barbados
Friday April 29 2011 | 12:40 AM

MARLENE Bayne, Director, Bank Supervision, Central Bank of Barbados, believes that one of the priorities going forward for this country is to further enhanced the island’s regulatory framework.

She made the suggestion in a recent address to the Rotary District Conference held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre. Bayne spoke against the background of the global economic crisis which many analysts said stemmed in part from a lapse in regulation in some of the international markets where the crisis erupted.

“We recognise the need for continuous improvement in regulation and are currently focused on enhancing the regulatory framework by amending existing legislation and guidelines, by strengthening consolidated supervision and improving our data collection capabilities and prudential reports,” Bayne told the function.

She said that Barbados was in the process of implementing Basel Two Capital Framework when the crisis broke.

Noting that since then several enhancements to the Framework have been made, she explained that they “have taken the opportunity to review our Implementation Roadmap and are focusing initially on implementing Pillar 2, which emphasises the importance of strong regulatory oversight and strong industry risk management practices.”

According to her, “The pending amendments to the existing legislation, the issuance of Guidelines and the revision of our prudential reporting forms are part of the Pillar II implementation process.” 

She remarked as well that another priority will continue to be the strengthening of information exchange and cooperation among domestic, regional and international authorities, leveraging on existing MOUs.

Barbados, she explained, is a member of a Caribbean Group for Banking Supervisors (CGBS) Technical Working Group, which is developing a Regional Crisis Management Plan.

“Out of the Regional Plan, the need for a National Crisis Management Plan for Barbados was clear, and this work has commenced. Crisis Management Plans seek to identify all the key stakeholders and to establish their respective roles in crisis times. It is important that these Plans are tested intermittently and revised as necessary,” she noted.

She added that if Crisis Management Plans are comprehensive, it is hoped that crisis situations can be handled with greater efficiency.

“I think we can all agree that another important lesson we can take away from the crisis is that while it may not be possible to prevent future crises, one can plan to mitigate the possible fallouts,” the CBB said.