Roundtable Talks Very Good – CARICOM Chairman

(Barbados Government Information Service Press Release) CARICOM Chair and Prime Minister of Belize, John Briceño, has described the Caribbean Financial Access Roundtable with the US Congressional Delegation as “a very good meeting”.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday evening, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre after the talks, Mr. Briceño said Caribbean countries had been doing everything asked of them with regard to the issue of correspondent banking, including passing and amending legislation.

“As we do it, you continue to change [the goal posts] …and it is frustrating for us as a region…. If you’re in United States, you can go and open a bank account in 30 minutes and walk out with a credit card. In the Caribbean, it takes you weeks and sometimes months to be able to open a bank account and it’s ridiculous, just because of the regulations that have been imposed on us.

“And, I also believe that there is a moral responsibility of these large American banks that have severed relationship with all banks in the region. We had relationships for decades, and just because we’re not big enough and they will not make enough money from us, they decided that they’re going to cut us off, not thinking about the people that live in the region,” he stated.

The CARICOM Chair reminded that people in America remitted money to citizens of the region, and he noted that this issue was critical.

Read more at: Barbados Government Information Service