BFSB’s Board of Directors has adopted a recommendation for the establishment of a Best Standards and Practices Committee, a mechanism intended to ensure self-oversight of the financial services industry.

The new Committee’s mission will be to promote and encourage adherence by members of BFSB to best international standards and practices generally, and, in particular, in relation to the KYC and counter money laundering systems, procedures and practices being adopted world-wide. The Committee embraces all sectors of the industry and comprises a representative from each of the principal professional bodies.

The Committee will also seek to identify a policy of consequences where a member fails to remedy deficiencies in standards and practices.

The standards ultimately adopted will be the output of all key sectors of the financial services industry.

“These and other initiatives that will likely come forward will make us better equipped as individual organizations and as an industry and nation as a whole to deal with the new international realities of financial service planning, administration and management” says BFSB Chairman Ian Fair.

The recommendation for the Standards and Practices Committee arose from deliberations of the BFSB spear-headed Strategic Development Committee, appointed some 3 months previously, to “define a strategy that will best assure a strong future for the financial services industry of The Bahamas”.