Eleanor Astaphan, Project Manager of the Single Market Insurance and Pension in the Eastern Caribbean Union
The Caribbean English speaking countries are spread across the region with most having duplication of institutions that could be more efficiently operated as one or two units to benefit from economies of scale.
We cooperate in a number of areas, most noted is in cricket where we have one team. From an economic point, the ECCU based countries have been cooperating on a number of fronts, the most noted being The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and one common currency. The countries are now working on setting up one body to regulate the insurance and pension industry as a single market.
According to Eleanor Astaphan, the Project Manager of the Single Market Insurance and Pension in the Eastern Caribbean Union the countries in the grouping have signed an agreement to establish the regulatory body which is likely to be operational in 2018. Revenues for the body is proposed to come from fees to be levied on industry, but this is the subject of discussion with industry players.
Under the new arrangement, when effected will require businesses to register in one territory to be able to operate in any country within the union.
Eleanor Astaphan was addressing a workshop for the Caribbean Association of Insurance Regulators hosted by the Financial Securities Commission of Jamaica and held at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston earlier this week.
Other presentors included John Jackson who gave the key note address and spoke of the need for financial regulars to be more proactive to ensure proper protection of investors. Jackson pointed to a number of issues that are occurring that are inimical to the sector and if not addressed could lead to major problems. Jackson also suggested the need for merging of a number of regulatory bodies across the region and creation of a single capital market.
The conference was addressed by Stuart Wason of the IMF, who resented papers on capital adequacy and assessing systemic risk in the insurance industry and Meg Mulry of AM Best spoke on strengthening insurance regulation and data collection in the Caribbean.
