MOTTLEY LEADS ROWLEY AGAIN

THE challenges you face in opening a bank account are because of stringent rules of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). 

FATF, a global organisation, combats money laundering and terrorism financing. 

The institution has placed tough regulations on the Caribbean, one of which pertains to banking guidelines. 

Many people in Trinidad and Tobago have complained of difficulties in opening accounts, making deposits or withdrawals, changing names on statements, and other routine financial matters. 

The matter has finally been aired internationally, through the plain-speaking Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley. 

Trinidad and Tobago’s leader Dr. Keith Rowley has not challenged the severe rules, and, instead, his former Attorney General Faris Al Rawi complied with FATF stipulations without dissent. 

There has been no leadership from the T&T administration in confronting the onerous conditions imposed by FATF. 

That direction has now come from Ms. Mottley, who was earlier named by Time magazine as one of the world’s most influential people. 

Ms. Mottley, in her typical outspoken manner, has told a United States House of Representatives Committee that opening a bank account in the Caribbean “is now a gargantuan obstacle for us.” 

She slammed what she termed “an unconscious bias” in imposing these tough measures on Caribbean countries. 

“Look at the list of countries that are listed, you will see they are all former colonies and people of colour,” she courageously told the Committee last week. 

She contrasted that with countries in which someone “could open a bank account in hours,” adding: “You see where the divide comes.” 

There are 41 states in the United States that each has a larger Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than the entire Caricom, whose collective GDP is US $82 billion, she said. 

Ms. Mottley asserted: “We are fighting for a global public good… we are fighting for the human rights of our citizens.” 

She said that investors and individuals could spend “weeks and months” setting up a bank account. 

As a result of the stipulations, there has been a decline in correspondent banking, which is the provision of services by a financial institution on behalf of another one, based abroad. 

She feared that those measures could drive Caricom countries underground and make their economies uncompetitive. 

Ms. Mottley reported that over the past decade every Caricom country has lost more than 30 percent of correspondent banking. 

Those banks were driven out by due diligence, “which means increased cost of regulation, increased cost of compliance.” 

Ms. Mottley’s criticism of the regulations follows her earlier focus on charges imposed by banks upon their clients. 

Last October, in a stinging rebuke, she said: “Next thing we are going to hear is that banks would charge you depending how skinny… or how fat you are…” 

She threatened to legislate a cap on bank fees, saying the current charges were “untenable.” 

She noted that the charges were added by companies to their cost of goods, and passed on to consumers. 

Ms. Mottley directed the Governor of the Central Bank to deal with the matter. 

In T&T, bank charges are a huge source of frustration for customers, and the authorities have declined to intervene. 

Each local bank has made increased profits in recent years. 

In fact, T&T is the only known country in which commercial banks reported improved bottom lines during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Barbadian commercial banks and the Central Bank have since discussed a reduction of the disputed charges. 

In other public addresses, Ms. Mottley has criticised the international banking system for not responding effectively to developing countries facing economic crises. 

The respected Forbes magazine has hailed her for not just highlighting problems, but also advocating “practical measures.”