Day 1 Morning - Effective Legal Frameworks for Building the Digital Economy
12:51PM Feb 13, +0000
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to really know the market and also very helpful for us you know some chances to win little activities and classes opening up opportunities and also was the some of the key you know aspects anything you know pharma so it's certainly a game changing
scene
no that's not our country service the national security threat question
so appreciate aligning
Good morning everyone we thank you for your patience. I am Frank Kula John of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union and we now would like to start the official program. I would like to invite Mr. Shawn Codrington who is the hotel's safety officer to do a safety
briefing for you.
Morning, first thing little housekeeping and bathrooms. You go through door here bathrooms are to the left straddling the corridor are in the lobby area. Gates are next to the stairwell and the ladies are to the right, small cloth. Now,
the very old emergency the alarm will ring some of you may need to hear it will go to turn
our bigodi to our assembly point which is to the east of the building. Our assembly is shifted back just after the stop Verrier facilitator and do a head count. The only thing if the the arm thing isn't given to all clear would you be able to come back onto property? Have a good morning
thank you very much Mr. Codrington. Hi, everyone has very short this morning. I just have a few housekeeping rules. In terms of our online participants. Interact with our speakers today. Kindly use the chat for questions during the moderated question and answer sessions for our remote speakers to reduce disruptions during the workshop. You will be allowed to start your video and unmute shortly before your speaking slot. We ask that all comments in the chat be on topic of the workshop. Now without further ado, I would like to invite Miss Vashti Maharaj advisor at the Commonwealth Secretariat to welcome you to the official part of the program bashing.
Hello, good morning
everyone. And welcome to the workshop on effective legal frameworks and building the digital economy. I trust that everyone is at a good cup of coffee this morning.
Looking alive,
excited for the day ahead. It is a sincere pleasure my sincere pleasure to welcome to the podium this morning. The Secretary General of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union who will be providing welcoming remarks to participants this morning running.
Morning
I want to welcome all of you and particular Honorable David Marshall, the Attorney General and Minister of legal affairs for the government to Barbados. The Honorable Grenville Williams also the Attorney General and Minister of legal affairs, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Mr. Chris Southworth Secretary General International Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Paulo took a senior director
trade oceans and natural resources come a wealth connectivity agenda. Or senior government officials members of the CTU the Commonwealth Secretariat are distinguished participants from the International Telecommunication Union. Distinguished Speakers, speakers, sponsors, members of the media ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to this three day workshop on effective legal frameworks for building the digital economy. represents a collaboration between the Commonwealth Secretariat. Many months of hard work with Vashti Maharaja is with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the CTU team to really set the context for how do we build a digital economy? What are the what is the legal framework what pieces of legislation what regulatory framework do we need to drive digital economies? There has been a great focus on digital economies quite rightfully because of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Many governments are establishing ministry that responsibility for technology and digital transformation here in Barbados was pleased to work with the new ministry of digital transformation. Well, it's called Ministry of innovation, science and smart technology. Initially, I believe it's now called Ministry of Industry innovation, and smart technology. In Trinidad and Tobago. There's the ministry of digital transformation, all of these with an understanding that to move forward in today's technologically driven environment, that it is important to set the legal frameworks to drive and promote and encourage digital transformation across all sectors. There's so many technologies that are impacting us today across the board. Very recently, of course, things like artificial intelligence, and in fact, you may be familiar with one called chit chat GPT,
which
is a new artificial intelligence base search engine. Well, it's an artificial intelligence tool, but it is made available to the public and in fact, I asked him to write my opening remarks for me, and I did quite a good job. I just asked it to do it just to see what it would actually produce but it is quite good. And I encourage you to go and see what the capabilities are for artificial intelligence and the bottom line is that it is it is predicted that AI will replace many, many jobs jobs that we believe now are not capable of being provided by computer systems will in fact be provided within the next five to 10 years. So it's even mind perhaps would probably be replaced by AI so who knows? Anyway, we are pleased to have this collaboration we have interactive sessions planned for for the over the next few days. What we want to not have is a talk shop we want that there are positive outcomes, actionable items that we can take and implement within our own national contexts. So with that in mind, and without further ado, I want to welcome you and encourage your active participation over the next few days. The sharing of your own experience from your national environments. I actually supposed to have the number of countries but I don't have it. I will provide it for you at some point. But we have very wide regional representation here today. Our colleagues from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago Cayman Islands. Oh, and our online participants, how could I forget we have quite a few participants online joining from around the world. So we want to welcome all of you and we appreciate that you took the time to be here with us and we look forward to Oh Minister Ishmael Davidson issue Minister of innovation, industry, science and technology. They name has changed since i i left but I'm really pleased you could you could join us here today. And with that, I want to hand over back to Vashti. Thank you.
Thank you very much,
Secretary General at this time, I'd like to invite the Senior Director of the trade oceans and Natural Resources Directorate of the Commonwealth Secretariat. My senior director, Mr. Polka Turkey will be delivering opening remarks virtually and I will hand over to our AV team to allow Paulo to deliver his
remarks.
He can give me a few minutes so that we can get him to join us online.
You hear me.
Good morning, Paolo.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Can you hear us? Yes,
I can hear. We do not seem to be hearing you. I think we just need to have the team to hear me
Can you hear me?
Right, should be able to hear you. Thank you. Thank you.
Green Channel off the Caribbean Telecommunication Union
rockin and Taylor.
On Rob honorable Attorney General Minister of legal affairs, Barbados, Mr. Dale Marshall. Noble ministers so joining the call in the conference distinguished participants, ladies and gentleman, gives me great pleasure to welcome you this workshop, effective legal framework for building the digital economy. Let me begin by expressing my appreciation to you all. taking time off your busy schedule to join us today and for the upcoming two days. Commonwealth Secretariat is aware the growing importance of creating strong and resilient digital economies in the Caribbean. correlative need create an adequate enabling environment for the creation of effective and cohesive legal frameworks.
In this regard,
we have through the Commonwealth connectivity agenda. cooperated with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union to build capacity among key policymakers, government officials, senior ICT officials and technocrats, as well as legal reform offices. regional stakeholders involved the information communications and technology the digital economy spheres. Caribbean Community the CARICOM the oldest surviving integration movement in the developing world, pricing 20 countries, home to approximately 16 million citizens 60% of whom are under the age of 30. So reach region renowned for its vibrancy and resilience. Caribbean has certainly risen to the challenge in the wake of the global pandemic recent international trade disruptions by placing digital transformation at the forefront. That's regional commitment has been evidenced by the unanimous agreement of the CARICOM ministers of ICT in February 2021 will accelerate the region's digital transformation the recent report which was launched by the Commonwealth connectivity agenda, titled the dative analysis of the move to paperless trade, was identified that digital trade facilitation across borders could increase trade across the Commonwealth by around 90 billion US dollars. legal reform to support the digitalization of economic of electronic records to unleash as much as 1.1 trillion US dollars. Again, the total benefit from paperless trade nearly 1.2 trillion by 2026. The report also specifically identified that stakeholders within the Caribbean toward a COVID Nine to 19 pandemic as a primary catalyst chains pointed to initiatives aimed at promoting the use of technology is border controls, as well as the political will reap the full advantage of more streamline trade. digitalization of trade can also increase access to finance nificantly reduce costs and processing times. Reduce the risk of fraud and corruption also create global standards for interoperability and technical standards in order to unleash the multiplicity of benefits of paperless trade. This epsilon absolutely essential to engage in appropriate legal reform. This provides the requisition requisite foundations for creating an enabling environment for a thriving digital ecosystem. And fall of this year the Secretariat are here to provide the necessary support assistance in the region's equal effort. Yeah, pleased to be partnering with Caribbean Telecommunications Union. The hosting of the workshop and are also very fortunate Praesidium have several trusted partner organizations on board, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, United Nations Capital Development Fund recon Competition Commission, International Telecommunications Union
Ericom impacts UNCITRAL the standards
of best practice for will identify best practice standards as well as elucidate on the experience with other regions. Agenda for the workshop was a broad range of topic areas, focusing on key legislative building blocks in national frameworks support the digital economy as well as international perspectives on building the digital economy in this regard, I would encourage you become immersed in the wealth of information to be imparted, inclusive approach to its inculcation what's building resilient digital economies within the Caribbean. This note would like to wish you a productive and fruitful workshop here participate that this very anticipated this very positive. They will positively pave the way for further collaboration, the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, promoting the development of a resilient digital economies. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much Powell.
And at this time, it is my distinct pleasure to invite to the podium, honorable Dr. Marshall, the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, the government of Barbados.
We're off to a flying start.
Morning everyone.
When the practice of saying protocol having been observed first came up, I was dead set against it. I felt that each speaker should pay tribute to all of the important guests there. It has become so commonplace and this list of guests is so long that I fear that I will have to resort to saying protocol haven't been observed the morning. I do feel though that I must acknowledge my new colleague, Attorney General of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to Granville Williams. It's funny how life goes. There was a time not long ago. When civilians would have called me sir and saluted. And no. tables have certainly turned but let me welcome you to this very important in August office. Let me also pay tribute to my ministerial cabinet colleague, Mr. Davidson, Ishmael, who probably should be here, given this speech instead of me. It is my pleasure to provide a few remarks today at the opening of this workshop focusing on effective legal frameworks for building the digital economy hosted jointly by the CTU and the Commonwealth Secretariat. organizers have been very kind to give me 15 minutes to do this address, but you'll be pleased to know that I have decided to give them back five. It is my understanding that this particular conference has been long in the making and where it presents a long standing tradition of cooperation between these two institutions. This one is the first of two SAS workshops that will take place in 2023. This one in particular has a timely focus on digital economies and the critical pieces of legislation that must of necessity, underpin our efforts to nurture and support national and regional digital transformation strategies. It represents an intersection between law and technology. It seeks to foster greater understanding of how modern legislation and key areas such as telecoms, financial services, cybersecurity and cybercrime, and several others helped to create an enabling environment for digital trade. He would allow me a personal reminiscence the late 1990s I was invited to be and accepted the post of chair of an International Committee of the very ambitious but no dead, Free Trade Area of the Americas. It was the committee of experts on electronic commerce. A very sophisticated name. And it was in those days, the early days of E commerce a term that nobody uses anymore. We were struggling with the basics to regulate or not to regulate to tax or not to tax how best to protect intellectual property out of contract as long as a played. In those days, Amazon had not yet seen a penny in profit. There were no smartphones on the market and may then cutting edge Toshiba tecra laptop waiting near 12 pounds. And forced therefore to view what we had and did then, as one would view a donkey cart alongside one of today's fancy SUVs. As I said, No one speaks today of electronic commerce. We've forgotten those dark days. And we now talk about the digital economy. Those early days or countries have enacted various pieces of legislation. Aim that information and communications technology or Zoom specialists will call it a CTS or Barbados. These include our Telecommunications Act, Electronic Transactions Act and or Computer Misuse Act. More recently, we've enacted legislation on data protection and we've made amendments to the above pieces of legislation in order to bring them more in line with the realities of an ever evolving technological landscape. pace of technological innovation will always outstrip our ability to make and enact legislation either fulfill our policy mandates or to address societal challenges that technology will bring to the forefront. areas such as cybersecurity and cybercrime, artificial intelligence FinTech and others can rarely be seen as highly technical requiring specialized knowledge of the terminology and the potential impact on our respective national economies and our societies but having said that legislation that will stand the test of time, as always to be technologically neutral, and should not be overly prescriptive. It should, as we all know, provide a framework for managing and resolving conflicts, protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals, promote the general welfare of society and achieve public policy objectives. Legislation helps to ensure that everyone is subject to the same rules in a transparent way and provides a mechanism for changing those rules. As our societies evolve. Of course, I'm assured that we're not here to turn legal professionals into cyber experts maintain finance paths, nor are we here to turn cyber experts into lawyers. But we are here to foster greater collaboration and to provide a space where we can work collaboratively through some of our challenges within CARICOM, on growing our economies, fostering cross border trade, and leveraging modern digital tools. I'm told that Barbets is currently the chair of the regulatory cluster of the Commonwealth connectivity agenda for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and foreign trade. This has been designed to expand intra Commonwealth investment and has significantly contributed to leading discourse and knowledge exchange across the Commonwealth. On the importance of building effective legal frameworks, as perhaps is the foundation for promoting trade and investment and it is a happy coincidence therefore, as chair, this workshop is being held Barbados. We also committed to creating greater resilience within the Caribbean in light of the global trade disruptions occasioned by the COVID 19 pandemic. The challenges with the international supply issues that arose there from and also to prioritize digital transformation, as approved by quartet I say this in the context where Barbados has lead responsibility within the CARICOM quiz a cabinet for the single market and economy as well. A strong CSM is also part and parcel of what you'll be discussing over the next few days based on the agenda before you and of course, this discussion extends beyond one of technology. This also includes traditional issues and challenges with doing business with our brothers and sisters within this region. We call home. The national effort the government of Barbados has made a concerted effort to prioritize digital transformation with the creation of my friends ministry, the Ministry of innovation, industry, science and technology and supported by significant investments in the creation of digital platforms for public service delivery. Pandemic led to the acceleration of these initiatives, and allowed us to redouble our efforts on digitizing several processes relating to the grounds of business licenses, for example, and the facilitation of electronic payments for various services. But it concede at the very catalyst that COVID-19 was far accelerating or digital transformation was obviously also a major hindrance. What ought to have been a smooth rolling out is the Ishmael could tell you that half of the problem was that the staff was not at work, working from home when they were at work. We're sitting 12 feet apart. Any of these services required close collaboration with the Office of the Attorney General in order to give legal ethics better and to provide regulations to govern the new and more efficient business processes. The things I'm going to say Smeal and I are proud of and I'll give you what they are, are in the area of policing and the area of general administration and policing we had a challenge where an individual who applied for a police certificate of character to wait 12 weeks to get an appointment. They would go in get fingerprinted, and then wait another five or six weeks to have this certificate of compliance certificate of factor to to them. We determined that this was an archaic way of doing things and with significant
effort. A lot of elbow grease.
We now have a situation where in Barbados you can apply for a police certificate of character online, online and you can get that certificate within seven or eight minutes is delivered to you online. And that's for liquor licenses. Thank you very much as always. Rodney was part of that with liquor licenses, for example, under this not so long ago. If you applied for a liquor license, you had to take your application, hand it in at the magistrate's court, pay your fee, and then be summoned to court only on Mondays. Wait until your particular applications was called appear, shivering before a magistrate in the committee of total committee of three to be told whether you were going to get your liquor license or not. All of that is out the window. You apply online pay online and you get your liquor license within a matter of an hour or two. Of course, there's a lot more to be done. And Minister Ishmael young and vibrant is just the person to do it. Mr. Chair, I think I might take back my five minutes. Let me let me fast forward though. We recognize this is a constantly changing environment. And in many respects, there is a great risk that Caribbean governments can lag behind. We have lagged behind in many, many areas over the years. There are some who were saying not long ago that we were lagging behind in the area of FinTech then of course we have this some baikman Fried backhoe in our sister country, the Bahamas. It would probably be inopportune for me to say that as I was preparing this speech last night and they wrote some bagman frayed thought with the numlock that are almost doomed to disaster. Sam bank man fraid.
Of course,
by the time we added Bernie Madoff to the equation I had to start writing because it was laughing at my own efforts. But we mustn't allow what happened to FTX cause us to recoil and cower and run from emerging systems. If you look at our history, we'll know that we had the Great Depression, which had pretty much every bank in the world on the verge of collapse. And in more recent times, we had the Bank of credit and commerce international BCBC CI
then we had Enron and then we had Bear Stearns.
These things happen from time to time, but we must always view them through a lens of optimism and determine that we will be there whenever the dust clears. I'm pleased to see the level of interest by both traditional and new players and our local market offering innovative solutions that enable the movement of money by way of our mobile phones. Barbados will ensure that there is the requisite regulatory environment through its institutions such as the FSC Financial Services Commission, the central bank, and the Fair Trading Commission in particular to nurture this fast growing financial services area. Coming close to the end, in my view, we cannot look to develop the digital economy across the region in any serious way. Though, considering the issue of how we deal with the negative impacts the negative aspects and in that regard, I'm referring to cybercrime. This has enlisted its Law Reform Commission chaired by Sir David Simmons produced for us cybercrime statute, which will replace our 2005 Computer Misuse Act. And as I was reflecting with Ronnie earlier that name of our 2005 statute speaks wonders was called it is called the Computer Misuse Act. That was his focus when people misused
technology,
but it didn't get into the specifics. It didn't get into the the nitty gritty it was a very general statute prevalent at the time but as time moved on, we recognize how hard it was as a as a statute to govern criminal behavior, or new statute when passed will provide specifically for the Combating of cybercrime and all of us iterations of illegal access to computer systems, computer related fraud, pornography and child grooming, and cyber bullying and all of these things we try and contort ourselves to see if we can fit into something now called Computer Misuse. We haven't been very successful. That particular statute is draft statute is now in the hands of my ministerial colleague, and they expect that we will have it in parliament in the next two months, as a senior minister in or is taken down as a directive or done as a as a hint. Let me close by welcoming all of you to Barbados and invite you along the way to spend a little bit of time enjoying those things that we have to offer.
But as you do that,
as you do that, please keep in mind what you are here for. I applaud your focus on international best practices, as evidenced by the many international and regional experts who will be presenting on our agenda. I hope to have the opportunity to sneak back in and sit in the back and sit and understand the technological side of what they do. We must of course focus on what works best for each country based on our needs and based in our capacity. And we also have to look at how in CARICOM, we can harmonize our approach to these issues. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your invitation.
I hope that my few words will last you a little bit longer than your morning break.
Thank you very much honorable Attorney General for your warm and gracious welcome by a host country and your key words about the evolution from E commerce to the digital economy. Loaded with many words of wisdom on what we should focus on.
Want to know thank you very much fast
G so again, we beg for your indulgence as we ask the following persons to please come to the front to have some photos. We'd like to invite the Honorable Ministers along with the
Attorney General from the
St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We'd like to have you in the ministerial shot as well. So honorable Dr. Marcia, Honorable Minister Ishmael Honorable Minister,
Williams, Secretary General
typically what we'll do, I will put the banner right here, right? Yes, correct. All right
all right ministers
Yes. Not in front of
the light on the projector Nitronic projector on top of their heads.
Yes
time to speak less
we'd like to have one more shot if we can with the
Okay, yes.
All right. We would like to invite everyone outside to have the group shot right in the corridor. Thank you
Thank you minister.
All right. Thank you, everyone.
I will now hand you over to Vashti Maharaj who would continue with the program as we get back on track. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your beautiful smiles and we assure you that we will also be sharing the good photograph with everyone. At this time we're going to go into the main program and the main order of business for today. We're going to start off this morning's presentations with a donation by the United Nations Capital Development Fund. Pleased to have join us this morning, Miss Helen Gladstein.
And Mark Wensley
who are going to present jointly present a presentation on measuring digital economies and creating an enabling environment for financial innovation. I like to kindly ask that you give them your due attention. And of course save your questions and answers to the end of the presentation. I'll hand over to our AV team Helen
and Mark
thank you so much. Is everybody able to hear me this morning?
I'm assuming hopefully everyone's able to hear me. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present well, and thank you to all we're very happy to be here today. And I'm hoping my colleague Mark is also available on the line to present the PowerPoint as well. So today, we will be able to focus on a presentation to hopefully set the stage and essence how to develop and create an enabling Digital finance ecosystem. And what we have here today is to present two separate presentations. The first around the inclusive digital economy scorecard which is a measurement tool designed by the United Nations Capital Development Fund and then the second around an enabling regulatory environment to enable digital financial innovation on the next slide, I would like to just provide a brief introduction of the United Nations Capital Development Fund. So the United Nations Capital Development Fund is a United Nations agency. Sorry, America. Next slide. Yes, so the United Nations Capital Development Fund. So we are for those who don't know us. We recently opened up our Eastern Caribbean offices last February of 2022. And we're very happy to be here. My name is Helen Gladstein and I am the regional lead and head of the UNCDF Eastern Caribbean office which is based here in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Apologies that we weren't able to join everybody today in Barbados, and the UNCDF what does our program in the Caribbean do? You know, we try to make ourselves agile, available and technical and currently our flagship program which is funded by the European Union, and provide support to enable digital finance policy initiatives as well as provide investment in the private sector works across Trinidad Tobago, as well as the Eastern Caribbean States and in general, our UNCDF Office provides a mixture of different programs particularly regional policy acceleration programs, which provides mixes of technical assistance and you know, boot camps, workshops and training, as well as financing to scale innovation and new fintechs with the promise to for financial inclusion as well as a window for discrete technical assistance. And I'm just going to hand it over to my colleague Mark for himself to introduce himself and to kick us off with the United Nations Capital Development Fund inclusive digital economy scorecard again, which helps to set the stage for today's conference and hopefully provide some meaningful dialogue on how what are the pieces for a digital economy and how it can be managed and measured. Thank you very much, Mark over to you.
Good morning. My
name is Mark Winsley. I am a digital advisor with the United Nations Capital Development Fund. And it's a pleasure to be here with you today to share how the inclusive digital economy scorecard measures the development and inclusiveness of the digital economy as well as to share a few examples of how data driven tools like itis are being adopted into decision making processes. to operationalize and advance key policy changes. You will hear me refer to the term itis So I first want to take some time to define it. Itis stands for the inclusive digital economy scorecard itis has been designed with and for policymakers, to help them understand the status of their digital journeys and to set the right priorities for the years ahead. Itis is a metrics driven tool which presents comprehensive high level data. And itis is now in its third edition. data was collected in 2026 countries last year. And we are now preparing for the launch of the fourth update this year.
And
I should also mention that Ibis is implemented in the countries where we have on the ground experts and experience so together with our government partners UNCDF collects and validates the data. I will share a few examples later on of how partners are adopting this tool. But first, I just want to highlight UNCDF 's unique role in helping to score market barriers and to engage policymakers on the strategic findings from the scorecard. For more than a decade, UNCDF has supported central banks to leverage the power of digitalization to transform the financial systems and to make them more inclusive with basic technologies. In the last five years, our support has expanded to ministries and bodies with strategic responsibility for digital economy transformation, such as ministries of ICT and Digital Economy, Science and Technology and national planning authorities to mention a few as an active facilitator of market systems development. UNCDF is able to build on our relationships with the private sector to engage them, and to really identify barriers that are limiting the growth and inclusion of their services, which equips us to help provide expert judgment in several key areas. And we will be hearing more from Helen later on in the session about how un CDF is working with governments today, many different areas to do this. Coming back to itis you've heard me mention the
the financial sector,
but as we know there are many other sectors that are undergoing digitalization. Digital Transformation shapes a wide range of sectors extending to agriculture, education, health, transportation, etc. And this involves numerous government agencies and a broad set of actors and the Finnish in the private sector and civil society. So to chart a path to successful digital transformation it's crucial to coordinate the efforts of many stakeholders. And fundamentally this effort must strengthen a core set of digital building blocks, namely policy and regulation, infrastructure, Innovation and Skills. These are part of many digital economy frameworks. What itis does is to build on this holistic framework with a metrics based approach to start measuring and tracking the development of the digital economy, really recognizing that all of these digital building blocks must be strengthened and that one without the other prevents access to and use of digital technologies to digitize sectors and economic activity. So for example, on policy and regulation, it really this holistic framework expands the aperture for assessment from active policy promotion for interoperable infrastructure to in how policy is introducing and pushing digitalized social transfers and GDP alongside test and learn regulatory approaches to promote innovation. On infrastructure. For example, it opens up the aperture for assessment from digital connectivity and device ownership to open digital payment systems and digital identity systems. With this approach, we're connecting policy and regulation to how services enter into the transactions and the participation of people in small businesses in the economy. For some policymakers, this holistic framework serves as a quick inventory of enabling and inclusive policies to compare against and to prompt strategic reflection and discussions. As as this happens, we recognize that making digital transformation inclusive really requires an intentional focus on the various segments of the population that are too often left behind from innovation and access to skills and services. These are rural populations, women youth, MSMEs refugees, migrants, elderly and the disabled and building from a place of what gets measured gets managed. We are bringing data to both the segments and these core pillars about the barriers they face really to help governments and the private sector to better understand their markets to help frame the problems to address and to focus on the right priorities. More data is being collected, but there are still gaps really to form a full picture of inclusive digital transformation. And this is why UNCDF has partnered with you on taggi SMA un DESA, UNDP, ADB and governments in Africa, Asia and the Pacific to build itis and to include relevant proxies and data that can be used to really assess whether and how the digital economy is developing.
Just going to go to the next slide here. Sorry, bear with me.
So,
just to talk a little bit more about the tool. You know, there is a problem where, you know, a lack of comprehensive timely and action oriented data creates a barrier to really taking a data driven decision making approach. And this happens at exactly the time when a lot of governments are under urgent pressure to accelerate National Digital Economy transformation. And they're early in their journey and they really have to take a running start. So itis comes enters into the picture as an accessible tool is something that can be used with really low barriers to to understand what's happening and which key elements to focus on. Some of the defining features of the tool is that it's metrics driven with flexibility. So it can draw from global data sets by default. And it can also substitute in local data sets that are more trusted or integrated into m&e that's used by policymakers, for example. It's also a tool that can leverage our in country expertise. So really building on our relationship with the private sector to help inform findings. We can help with scoring and expert assessment on particular areas. But beyond that, UNCDF provides active support to facilitate working groups with the government to validate the data to internalize findings and really to support reflection on priority setting it at key inflection
points. The tool
presents data in a comprehensive way. And I think an important thing is that it's an evolving tool. So we have a collaborative approach with this tool so that as needs a policymakers evolve, we can also update the methodology and for example, in 2022, we launched the women's inclusivity score to bring greater visibility and framing to the barriers that women face in participating in the digital economy.
This is all
with the several use cases in mind. So we are really looking at how to support policymakers to identify Keymark market barriers to help set the right priorities and also to measure and track the development and inclusiveness of the digital economy.
And I'm just going to go to the next slide here.
To give you an example now, where itis has been used. And to do that, I'll zoom into Uganda, which is an early adopter country where policymakers are using IDs. And this is just a quick snapshot to show you know some of the analytics that come out of the scorecard and if we look here, we can see that the digital economy score and Uganda has made progress year on year but they still have plenty to do. And what's offered through the framework is also to see that from an inclusiveness perspective. Several groups especially rural communities, and women still experience gaps and face challenges to participate and benefit from the digital economy. And more so, for for women and one of the things that came out of the implementation of itis, in Uganda, and this was shared through a recent community of practice where we brought together 40 Policymakers from 15 Different countries where we are implementing itis to really talk about, you know, how have they started to reflect on these findings and what what can they be doing to advance the agenda. They shared, you know, some really interesting insights which I thought could be informative here. You know, there's two ways to look at it, you know, within each of these holistic built building blocks, there are deficits, but then there's also the comparison of the building blocks to see where those deficits are greatest. And in this particular example, we can see that when looking at policy and regulation in the country, they scored very highly and at the same time, outcomes were falling short in several key areas such as infrastructure, and innovation had decreased despite active government focus on this area. And so, one of the key takeaways was that you know, the many laws and policies, guidelines and strategies that have emerged over the years, as they were Dynamically Responding, weren't being effectively implemented. And so it was really through the comparison on the scores that they were able to identify this as an area for action and review. One of the we've worked with our partner in Uganda now to really take a comprehensive review of the policies and look for opportunities to streamline them. We're helping with this review and inventory to look for areas where things can be improved from an implementation perspective, as well. So this is one example of how actions have been taken on based on itis but there's other examples and I'll just name a few where the adoption of a data driven tool has enabled the operate operationalization of strategies. So our partner in Uganda, the Ministry of ICT and digital transformation was focused on identifying actions to mainstream digitalization in the national development plan. When I this was first implemented and based off of the the the data that was generated the engagement with the ministry. We were able to work with them to engage the working group that coordinates digital transformation across ministries. To both we're doing engage on the findings, but also to adopt it as a baseline for the working group to really ensure that ongoing strategic conversations really reflected both on the priorities and outcomes. A second example is that the Ministry of ICT has also started to use itis in linking budget planning across the various regulators, infrastructure authorities departments and other departments and Ministries which they have responsibility so that they can create a more focused approach in how budgets are aligning to the priorities that have been articulated notice. So zooming out we do see quite a few other examples among our partners where itis is being used really across the lifecycle of policymaking
and we go
So, in particular, using ICT is to inform National Digital Economy strategies. So being able to quickly reference statistics on what's happening in the market, where the barriers are to really help set priorities. For example, at the strategy development stage, but also more specifically to identify if, for example, there are deficits around how you know the cybersecurity is working or how interoperable infrastructure is being promoted, to really identify constraints hindering development, where policy actions can be taken. And we are also supporting partners to do some of these things. And then lastly, to help with the evaluation of strategies to really reflect on whether or not their strategies are having the effect on outcomes that they seek to achieve, so adopting them for monitoring and evaluation. And I think with that, I'll just end on the Note that, you know, itis really started as a tool and it's expanded to a community of users. We now have a community of practice that is actively discussing how they are measuring the economy. What they can do to really implement more effective policies and how to lead transformation across government. And central to the approach is this data driven decision making process to really get broader agreement and visibility into the challenges facing marginalized groups in the economy. So with that, I do want to hand over to Helen and just I will flip through side slides as you need help and so over to you, thank you
so much, Mark, and thank you for providing and setting the stage. And one of the opportunities of the idea scorecard is that it essentially provides the initial point of a blueprint for what are the activities first of all, where do countries how can they benchmark themselves either against peers or global good standards to create that digital, like a thriving digital economy but also how can you use it also as a blueprint for moving forward? And how do you address those gaps? And so during this presentation, we want to essentially zoom in to one pillar of the digital economy scorecard particularly around digital finance, and talk around the legal regulatory frameworks that we find are good practices and huge enablers. For a digital finance ecosystem as well as some policy initiatives as well that complement and create a more thriving ecosystem in general. Would you mind moving to the next slide? Perfect. So digital Finance, Financial inclusion, and UNCDF so many people while we've landed and just started our operations here in Japan, Tobago, as the regional office, have you ever received the question? Why focus on FinTech and digital finance? And for us, the answer is quite easy. The UNCDF you know, we believe that financial inclusion which is essentially the uptake and usage of a range of appropriate financial products and services, both digital and traditional by individuals and MSME, and that's provided in a manner that's sustainable and accessible and safe to the consumer is a contributing factor towards the sustainable development goals in general financial inclusion helps. Low income and more marginalized consumers have more economic resilience to mitigate shocks and then also grow their own economic livelihoods and be able to invest in more income generating activities, among other strategies to build wealth and to manage wealth longer term. And tech helps us to thrive that sorry, achieve many of these key elements FinTech and digital finance and just different digital financial innovations in general, it helps to make the finance more accessible, more usable, particularly because they're able to now come on to someone's mobile phone, there's different applications available, you can potentially make payments around the world using QR codes with Linked Accounts, etc. It's more accessible because you're able to use a wider range of agent networks as opposed to always walk into your brand, bank branch. You know, it makes products and services more diverse, appropriate, competitive, and also it can help to create more sustainable products as well. And another question we receive, often and particularly important for small island states is, is why digital finance from an inclusion perspective, you know, especially if easy to drive 20 minutes, and you're, you know, at a quite a big point of, of organization or if you can go from one time to the island fairly quickly, as compared to other countries. You know, what's the real need for digital finance and again, this is where we look at inclusion because we see lots of marginalized or more vulnerable adults in more rural areas around the the region having to essentially expend a lot of time, effort and money to use transport and to have to transport themselves. So in essence, these are the reasons why it's important. And I just received a note that we only have about five minutes so I'm going to move more quickly. So on the next slide, you can see that in essence the way to build a digitally financial inclusive ecosystem, that there's many different frameworks already available in the market. These two were created by the payments aspects of financial inclusion from the Committee of payments and market infrastructures and World Bank around how to drive digital payments for Financial Inclusion and essentially in essence since 2016, when the framework first came out by the World Bank and DPMI it transition to what you see on the right as a puppy wheel, which incorporates all of the elements relevant for digital finance, but in essence, how do you really do this and on the next slide, you can see a slightly adapted framework and I think in a rapid way, I'm going to explain to two frameworks around how to create the right policy initiatives as well as the legal regulatory framework to enable digital finance and fintech as well as how to create a thriving ecosystem. And while there's no silver bullet framework, and there's no right answer, it's generally the confluence of the two that where we've seen a lot of success. Um, so I'm just going to briefly mention some of the key points in this house and mark on the next slide. You can see the first Oh, apologies. And here's the second framework for essentially establishing a thriving FinTech ecosystem. And this was adapted by the approach of Singapore, where in essence, you need to create policy initiatives as well as have the legal framework to enable fintechs or other innovations and entrepreneurs to access capital to be able to operate in the market with the enabling policy environment to have access to customers, partners and policymakers. And we're seeing some very encouraging efforts on this front from across the region, as well as opportunity or policy initiatives to nurture business skills and talent.
So on the next slide I'm just going to start
piece by piece, um, in essence, what are the biggest foundations is public and private sector commitment, and what does this mean generally, there's a driving or steering force behind creating this agenda that helps to put all these pieces together. And generally this is an agency either housed within a central bank or with their ministry of finance or multiple agencies as part of a committee that establish their financial inclusion strategies or digital finance roadmaps or digital economy strategies that all have the digital finance portions in place to help create and steer a way forward. It also includes putting in place those adequate data infrastructures, particularly the demand side data to understand the the gaps on from consumers and merchants supply side data generally taken from ministries and in particular, the central bank around account ownership, and then geospatial data to understand any types of gaps in accessibility. Then there's generally communication engagement in international regional and domestic forums, for instance, the btca, or AFI, many of which those in the room today are already aligned with and then collaboration coordination, and this is one piece I want to to point out because I think it's a piece that's not always well understood. And also one piece that's incredibly important, which is how do the regulator's collaborate with domestic institutions. To drive those. This agenda forward. For instance, what should be some of the role of the regulators in some countries regulators take a huge suite of activities under this space, and what should maybe be the role of other institutions and government agencies who might be able to come in and provide you know because of different resource capabilities or, or however the jurisdiction looks in terms of its political environment and might be able to provide another housing for policy initiatives that otherwise couldn't be held under a regulator so it's important to to keep those in mind as well as collaboration between the telecommunication sector and the financial sector, since many of these digital innovations go through mobile rails. The next slide, you're going to see a critical piece and I'm just going to take a little bit of time to explain this one and then go through the rest a little bit quickly. But since the theme of this entire workshop is around the legal regulatory frameworks, it's important to understand what are really those fundamental blueprint activities, which create an enabled Digital finance ecosystem, the first being a special licensing window for non banks to become easy money issuers are to issue some type of E money account. And in general, these are often provided either through money orders or issuance, eMoney issuances, or you know, e wallet orders. There's different terms that we see around the world, but these specialized licensing windows allow non banks to provide money accounts or prepaid or store value accounts without being subject to the full range of Prudential rules applicable to commercial banks, and it often includes details around the float and other Prudential safeguards, particularly when this is newer to the market for instance, you money issuers who might pose a systemic risk, you know, how can you then mitigate those risks with the particular safeguards in place, for instance, the E wallet limits, you know the actual limit of the wallet itself or being able to ring fence, customer funds, etc. And one thing that's very important around non bank e money issuance because I know that many countries have already begun to place e money orders or you wallet orders across the region is flexibility. No, the money order itself does not guarantee effectiveness. Often there's an iterative process that we see around the world in order for regulators to really understand what are the right as well as policymakers what are the right types of limits and mitigation activities. Along with the right types of requirements to put onto non banks in order to make this an effective and competitive environment. So the flexibility to make a more effective non banking framework, your money framework is incredibly important. And when I mean flexibility when I talk about flexibility, what I mean is that, for instance, if you have a set of requirements and that you eMoney providers or potential applicants are not able to meet those requirements, that there's a flexible window where you can provide a no objection, or an exemption or sometimes the case of a sandbox for slight variations. of that order or semi slight depending on the risk appetite to regulators in order to understand and to better identify the right risk to know proliferation of the money tours in the market and understanding right what the right balance is and then being able to adjust with either guidance or circulars after. Another very important regulatory aspect is the use of agents, both banks and non banks to be permitted to use third party agents such as retail shops, etc. And the way that these agents are approved is also very important. We've seen a lot of fall backs and a lot of you know constraints around the world when agent approval. The legal framework for agent registration or approvals can be cumbersome for instance, if a regulator is trying to approve the the registration of an agent agent by agent or even in small book agent approvals, and licensing schemes, so it's important to make sure that there is a reality around the number of agents that might come to come about and putting in place very well defined supervision. aspects. For for instance, the eMoney operator or the bank to be able to supervise a sector accordingly. Another incredibly important legal enabler is the risk based customer due diligence or CDD. Proportionate anti money laundering framework to allow for lower risk accounts and lower risk transactions to be opened with fewer documentation requirements. Generally, around the world. We see this being one ID and and a photo that can be verified. And there's many other ways to verify that now through remote onboarding, etc. And lastly, are the last two or three that are very important from a legal regulatory perspective is financial consumer protection, particularly the consumer protection rules that are tailored to the full range of DFS, providers and products? So for instance, there might be jurisdictions that have already created a consumer protection framework in order to you know, create a holistic financial consumer protection activities between complaint handling alternative dispute resolution and market conduct. However, many of those rules and many of those standards have to be read, like reviewed with keeping in mind Digital finance, particularly as it includes disclosure and transparency for the consumer as a mobile money product is being delivered through your mobile. You're no longer at the point of a branch where you can ask questions to staff members or see things on paper. And you have to be able to really understand and digest information clearly, in order to, you know, be able to feel like you're received all of the capacity needed to make an informed decision and there's many other tools like key facts or comparison tools that can be leveraged as policy initiatives. Lastly, that to other good practices, we see oops, sorry, if you go back, yes, and then I'll quickly move through the rest, as policies are bills that address fintechs This is generally under the form of a comprehensive FinTech bill or a payment system act or central bank Bank X. In the case of misco. It was the FinTech law, but in essence, recognizing the current nature of the payments legislation in your supervision, mandates across the institutions, of regulators and being able to create a more holistic system that includes FinTech cryptocurrencies, payments, service providers, etc. And the lastly and most one of the other most important is having opportunities for innovation facilitation as well as acceleration we generally see this in the form of sandboxes as well as innovation hubs. I think I'll stop there. But and mark if you can just flash through the rest of the slides and because these slides will be circulated I understand to all of the participants but in the rest of the slides that you're able to just flash through quite quickly. We show some other pieces and some poor pieces around what are some of those blueprint activities that you might have to consider in your jurisdiction in order to create an inclusive digital financial ecosystem. Yeah, Mark, I'm not sure if you're able to flash through till the end. But just so that you can get a sense of some of the other pieces of the puzzle. We at the UNCDF are very happy to have had the opportunity to present and thank you to the Honorable Ministers in the room and we do hope and we want to extend a bit of a
you know, extend that we are here and our regional offices open for the Caribbean and we would very much invite anyone who would like to see any type of technical assistance, policy assistance or even more initiatives to finance Digital finance, digital innovations that have promised for financial inclusion to reach out to us. You know, we will place our emails and our contact details
Prakash to you very much.
Thank you very much. Not I am very sorry. You have presented such a wealth of information. And I know that there will be questions from the audience. We could just start off with one from our remote participants. A question was asked and I think this is directed to mark were one of the participants wanted to know why PW DS on highlighted as a group targeted for measurement by the IDS system.
Thank you for the question.
You know the
the groups, the marginalized groups that have been the focus of the digital economy scorecard have really been identified through discussion with our partners and, you know, we've taken a phased approach to really build out the analytics for marginalized groups over time. The Start has been with women. This year, we're going deeper with youth. It's very much demand driven around where our partners are really having the greatest struggle at this moment in time. But I am sure that people with disabilities are on the radar and I will also referenced this with the team as well. So but if you do have demand for going deeper on this, I'd love to hear from you and discuss how we could take that further.
Do we see a question from the audience in Cleveland, I believe the YNAB awareness mic, please add Thank you.
Good morning and thank you so much, Cleveland Thomas from the International Telecommunications Union. Thanks very much for really excellent presentations that you give. I'm wondering that recognizing that most countries, especially developing countries, small island states, have some challenges, challenges as it relates to technical resources, financial capabilities, and perhaps recognizing that yes, there is this gap between the haves and the have nots. And that there is a view that if you do try to engage in some of the policies and regulations that are critical, which you articulated a few minutes ago, that the countries may not have the capacity, really to execute some of these things, and you listed quite a lot. So the question then becomes, what are some of the creative options that might be available to countries there is a view that perhaps the introductions of policies and regulations may stifle innovation in countries and in the region? And perhaps mark when you look at the Uganda example, you give, I take note that you had one policy change. After your introduction, I don't know many policies. That you have proposed, and I don't know how long it may have taken even to have that one policy change introduced. So in summary, do you support the view by some that maybe there is no need for policies and regulations given the challenges? that some countries are facing at this time?
I will
just quickly responded but Helen, please jump in after and I know you've got an vantage point on this as well. You know, thank you for the question. I think it's a great point, especially, you know, when we think about the example of gun, you know, in that situation, what one of the key findings was, was that the, the level of all the the various regulations and policies were not translating into outcomes in the key areas that they wanted to see results. And so, it was really understood that by reviewing what had emerged dynamically over time, and really looking at how to streamline in order to make the implementation of those policies more effective was, in fact, you know, the greater priority as opposed to, you know, just looking at another policy. But you know, one of the I think, to your point about how, you know,
especially, you know,
countries that are smaller, that may have a lower population density, there's just a unique set of challenges. And one of the things that we are finding is that by measuring the digital economy in one country, with a standardized framework, and then being able to see how another country is also measuring their digital economy, helps our partners to identify cross each other who their peers are, and who, you know, is working from a similar stage of development to really find solutions that are more relevant for them. And, and this is why we've introduced the community of practice. Because you know, a lot of the best practice a lot of the evidence, the research, it's from huge markets, huge countries, advanced countries, where the technology mix, the way in which digitalization can be incentivized with the private sector. Is just radically different. And so we're really looking at ways to find learning opportunities among more relevant peers. But with that, I will just ask Helen, if you want to talk on this as well.
Sure, I think thank you very much, but I think you bring up an excellent point, many, in fact, I think there's a few realities that we also have to consider one. So let's say that there is even a expediting of a particular order or E money issuance, but then there's not enough capacity to supervise, do you still license without the capacity and training in place to do the adequate supervision? And there's a lot of different ways to to answer that. On the one hand, there's opportunities to others opportunities to look at some of the global example examples of how they've done the supervision of those types of activities, particularly non bank e money, activities, and I focus on that just because not only is it a big enabler, but it's something that us as the international community and so many countries have have so much experience in that it's something that believe is kind of more well known, well tested and better, well tested and better understood. And so for these areas of FinTech and digital finance that are maybe a little bit better understood, a little bit more well known particularly around mobile money and non bank e money issuance. I think there's opportunity to license or be able to put in place flexibility to even provisionally license or provide a no objection for some of these players to operate. And then taking a careful and considered, you know, six month or one year or two year, however you want to do it provisional licensing scheme, if you want to closely monitor these actors over time prior to issuing some larger guidance. At the same time, there are the sandbox activities, sandbox is very good way to essentially tackle what you're mentioning, but at the same time, it's incredibly resource heavy sandbox. I know many of everybody has probably heard the term a regulatory sandbox, but the thing is that no two sandboxes look alike and when people when people are talking about sandboxes, what are they talking about? A sandbox with a capital S in Singapore and in the UK and others have almost 40 to 50 people behind them and that's why when you see these initiatives coming out around the acceleration and the innovation acceleration and and then they have, you know, 20 different calls for regulatory sandbox for different innovations to understand how to test and adopt the regulatory framework accordingly, you know, is very resourced behind it. And so, certainly there shouldn't be you know, when you are working on with regulators and a team of five people, for instance, all with shared duties or shared responsibilities, and this is just another one within your job description. You know, you have to take a wildly different approach and I think the wildly different approaches are moving a little bit more flexibly with the opportunity for some exemptions, no objections, perhaps provisional licensing or sandbox Express type tools, which is much more narrowly defined so that it's not overwhelming to the supervisors or the regulators, who will be the ones who have to you know, keep the stability in the market. Right and I think someone was just even chatting, there's not a one size fits all. So those are some of the enablers, but it doesn't mean that you need to come at each of these enablers with all of the bells and whistles behind each of those initiatives that we've seen in some countries. You know, there's always a tailored approach that can be taken and also a lighter touch policy tools that can be applied to achieve some
of the same goals.
Very much Helen and mark for the amazing presentation and also the wonderful responses. We'd like to thank you for your participation and hopefully on the next occasion, we will be able to meet you both in person on that note. As a matter of housekeeping, I have kept you back from coffee for so long. So I'd like to invite everyone to proceed to the coffee break light refreshments are served outside and we will be breaking unfortunately for 10 minutes. So that's a quick sip. You can bring your coffee back inside as well as your live. It's because we're a little bit behind schedule and we want to ensure that we're on time because we do have participants joining us remotely from the Pacific and other regions as well who's waking up in the middle of the night to see this. So on that note you're invited to go outside for the coffee break for 10 minutes, and we can reconvene the interim however, you can go ahead what we don't want to leave our online participants out. So we're going to try to arrange a group screenshots that we'll also be able to share with everyone after so I'd asked it if they can do the share screen for the participants.
Thank you
all participants Yes.
Right and we'd like to ask if you can just turn your cameras on and give us a big hello and a smile.
Those who can This is before just briefly.
You can get a nice big screenshot. of our online participants who are joining us
all right.
At handing over to you can take our screenshots
Hello
lovely
and thank you so we're off to coffee and we will reconvene shortly you can have a virtual coffee in between
said and
I would like to just kindly ask if we can push on
our next presenter
one second if you can just put up his bio
Our next presenter is Mr. Reagan asked Murali what Rockstar intellectual property controller. Very passionate, very driven. Mr. scalli focuses and heads the Intellectual Property Office in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. And I would like to now invite him to the podium for his presentation
Thank you Chair.
Just to let you know I used to be in a rock band indeed. 20 years ago, and those days were intellectual property was something we were passionate about and was a construct for legal firms and afloat. And it was very difficult really to manage your IP and coming out to the Faculty of Law. Cavehill 1999. You know, when we clamored for IP, and how we could really help SMEs RTS and fast forward didn't know where you have people who watch the Superbowl last night who watch the Super Bowl Halftime Show More importantly, there you go in the back there. Yeah, because Rihanna was amazing with bumping into and give such a performance during the Caribbean Pro. And this is what the creative industries digital trade and economy is about. Rihanna's brand Fenty is a billion dollar brand. what underpins that brand. Intellectual property, not the brick and mortar assets, but the words that intangible collateral asset and how has she exploited it using digital trade? Online unable to exploit the Madrid protocol in 125 countries and going Caribbean members and Commonwealth members are members of the Madrid protocol where without bras and Fenty have access to all those countries, language and Currency Payments all done online. In Trinidad and Tobago, we are looking at global carnival showcase. And I'm coming home for Carnival. Alright,
so Chronicon
global Carnival is looking at our best ways of franchising the carnival using the Madrid protocol using designs, talking about IP and having this exported to through our What are trade. British economic partnership agreements, the European Union Economic Partnership Agreement and taking it to the world. So I be you know, I want to recognize my permanent secretary, Miss Natasha Barrow of the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs and the honorable Attorney General of St. Vincent, just to let you know, so that, you know, the St. Vincent and Grenadines and intellectual property is doing amazing, you know, and my colleague Keisha we have many conversations and just looking at you POV and aspect of IP and how you're looking at that for even cannabis, as you know, a new plant variety protection. So IP he expressed creations of the human mind, right. The Secretary General earlier spoke about that, and he used chat and artificial intelligence device to write his speech. Do you think that that would attract IP meaning an artificial intelligence generator? Can have intellectual property be owned, because there are cases on that now being argued whether I should be afforded it, or should it be traditional owners of intellectual property?
Ie takers? Yeah,
so I'll go through because I have 15 minutes for this presentation. So it's sponsored by Geico. 15 minutes to insurance. Right. So here we are. Right. I want to talk about this beautiful macaque right. This beautiful macaque Naruto. He has photographer friend, Mr. David Sleater. The human being was taking photographs, and then he decided actually, to photograph the camera and take these most perfect, perfect still shots of himself and the Society for the Prevention, Ethical Treatment of Animals scattered decided, hey, we Naruto selfies, we can exploit the copyrights because Naruto should be able to own his IP What do you think about that? That you should be able to win his IP you on AI device like chat should win IP well guess what the judge found that intellectual property is not monkeys business. As beautiful as he is. It's the Express creations of the human mind. So inherent in what I've said is the definition. Right? So there you go. There was an agreement by Mr. Sleater that oh, he from the proceeds of the copyright, he would give back to the sanctuaries for the macaques. So it was a win win situation. Moving along the types of IP. So in my 15 minute presentation, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about trademarks. I've spoken about it Rihanna's brand, con con global carnival showcase. We could think of so many brands in our region and in the Commonwealth that have done well. In fact, in Trinidad and Tobago right now we are in the process of protecting the trademark for the Commonwealth Games Youth Games that is coming later this year. And looking at merchandise and all these things that will encompass the intellectual property because IP what is it? It's the air that we breathe?
Inventions patents.
Somebody told me you know, it's a very difficult construct and has to be novel have an inventive step has to be useful. It seems to be the forte of cooperations. Well, in this global digital economy, you can have SMEs, you can have individuals who have successfully been able to get patent protection and some of my slides I'll go through that industrial designs on a mental aspect of an article. Some of the perfume bottles that the Permanent Secretary uses for instance, with these unique shapes affected by IP. So to whom you have the chubby bottle, SM Jaleel I see we have Aqua here, it shall be bottle with its unique shape, protected by intellectual property as I've said it's the air we breathe. It's all around us. And we have G eyes, you know, so important and the digital environment whether it's Trinitario, cocoa, Jamaica, Blue Mountain coffee, demerara sugar, and so many other examples in the Commonwealth, looking at our inherent agricultural products, from our agricultural regions with unique characteristics. That's what geographical indications are. And when you ring fenced into a strategy, and then you go through a digital trade. Basically, you're bringing our culture, we do best to the world, especially in the Commonwealth rich and culture. From South Africa, we have been Zimbabwe, so many cultural products. Right? And of course, the old man on the side. I call them honorable man copyright. And related rights. Why? We write for text, original literary, dramatic, and Artistic Works music, neighbouring rights. So in one catchphrase there, you have what copyright and compasses such a rich milieu of protection
available. So, you know,
we're talking about FinTech here, right here in Barbados. There's accessible FinTech companies of research, carry lend. So what goes into these things, you have brands, protects against infringement, somebody came with something similar sounding to that FinTech brand. It assists with due diligence and trademarks. And very, very importantly, a trademark could be license to have exclusive distribution chips, and also you can also protect it across the board in different areas.
So what makes a trademark unique?
Well, I'll give you an example of what is not unique, the best fishcakes I thought that there was pretty good that we just had, right, but if I was trying to apply for the brand, the best fishcakes, will I get that? No, the Attorney General nods quite correctly, you know the honorable attorney general or the best doubles closer to home does not identify itself as a source identifier of goods 20 years ago, our lawyers wanted to have blackberries, you know, and now I have got two iPhones. Right. Would you believe one for work and want to keep the time in my 15 minute speech? And I've had to truncate, right. So, you know, trademarks, a sign that is graphically represented, that's the modern lamp in that and can have trademarks for image, your caricature, you can have song trademarks, you could have touch trademarks. And you could be you have the traditional slogans. So how are we going to lock in a rock star fashion or hard fat fashion tuber bungee stun? Because we in carnival time, you know the power of IP, really, to our culture and the region and the Commonwealth to the world. Right patents protecting technology, trade secrets. You all know about the Angostura bitters. It's one of the best kept trade secrets. What keeps that secret contracts? How they set it up? Right and it's very important sometimes in the restaurant industry, or chefs with the trade secrets. Many of them get too cold sweat equity. So at the nobody fire but you made a thought owner because of the importance of the intellectual property and those trade secrets and what it brings to the value of that corporation that restaurant, and of course copyright. No fintechs you know, what makes that proprietary software, unique copyright protection for the source code, as opposed to maybe soft source code that would be in the public domain that everybody could use. So this gives you an advantage, intellectual property. Once you use it and learn to use it. It gives you an advantage for your SMEs. For the governments that unlock the regulatory clauses that are so important. And you know, we've come a long way from 95 or 96 when trips came along trade related aspects of IP. And we put all of these in the IP offices and the Caribbean and in many Commonwealth countries into the law, the trips provisions, including in Trinidad and Tobago in 1997. That birthed the Intellectual Property Office. So when you follow the trips, provisions, you would see very important articles that can be used, such as the Geneva act for our for our unique shapes of articles, industrial designs, that you have access to eat a country's unique packaging from the Caribbean being able to protect and I spoke about the Madrid or even the E filing for patents. The filing services are all there for IP gigabit we in the IP Office of Trinidad and Tobago, now have over 500, SMEs signed up with online accounts, the file and they can pay for their mark in five minutes. And this is where unlocking the potential of IP has to go. Thank you. GEICO is now cut by a food Yes. Yes, I can. So trademarks, rituals, the story of Mario Sabka. Who did this happen? I was the legal counsel for a firm at the time, and it was set coffee could not work in the Caribbean. He persisted and we did some distributorship agreements and then he was looking for a name when to his wife or partner like many of us might go for inspiration. Mr. Khan definitely inspiration. Yes. And she said Mary, what does coffee mean to you? He simply replied, It's my ritual. I can do as these juices born, you had to go through 35 offices go to 35 Different lawyers lawyers are important, but not so important. He different translations and these to be able to take the study region. Now with the Madrid protocol. If we exceed a trial to be goes remember Jimmy Jamaica, Suriname is has acceded Antigua and Barbuda was the first and we need more Caribbean countries to really look at this and unlock it. Cuba also is a member in our region. So this round has gone throughout the hemisphere, right? And it has all of these assets used as a sign of endorsement, cabling, licensing, etc. A powerful trademark in the region. Right? And I spoke about the best doubles this is your slide. So I do need to speak right. Make sure it doesn't designate the kind quality or purpose a hotel
for five star
would not be protected as a trademark, you know, but you can't have elusive marks. Right. A great example of trademark is a book about ComiCon global carnival showcase. So here if you look at this slide, which will be for everyone, it kind of gives a guide as to how to look at brands and looking at trademarks because this is FinTech and different areas of new technologies. You know, I've pulled this from the database of the IP Office of Trinidad Tobago, where it has been registered PPR which is owned by tstt. For downloadable e wallets for provision of online marketplace for buyers, electronic funds transfer. It was hot off the press, and it was the licenses granted just last week. So the IP Office is your best tool. It keeps all your secrets, literally. And it has to it has to work in tandem with your economy. So because it'll take one slip up, and then you know your launch your brands etc. You're on the backfoot and then you're calling the lawyers and the lawyers have to be like mahones at the Superbowl last night, right. So look at the junction you know what this does. I'm coming home for Carnival like some of us. The junction literally connects you to all the mass bands and trying to be going it's doing here know it, you're shaking your hand. Great. Yeah, it can be had. Yeah, it connects you to all your mass fans. If you're lost. You can go back to one if you want to. Wine in our next band. Sorry, that's a trendy term. You can even find the other bands. It also connects all the parties helps you Witter. I just did this is in the carnival together through E commerce platform. Brand protected, scored, protected by contract and all of these things. This is a ip ip in motion. You know, this is what it's about. And this is the junction here the latest. We have what you're looking for. Interesting slogan, write down some terms, all in our back pocket. Your phone connecting the carnival of Trinidad and Tobago and doing work in the region. And I spoke about patterns. This is a workshop and I'm sorry, I have 15 minutes because I would immediately pull out your laptops and do some work where we can search for any technologies right true understanding patterns, Information Services, right? So Google patterns, I went to Google patterns, the simplest one, and I put in patterns for electronic monetary system. We're going to be talking about that this week, right. So as simple as Google patterns, what you search found, methods and systems for exchanging and transferring various forms of value. You pulled up the search reports. And if you use some of the patent databases that IP offices can teach, then you can actually find any technology. If it's not protected in the region or in the country. You can actually use some of this technology so this is what underpins IP. Very importantly, I remember once a young lawyer said, Well, you don't practice law and I said, Well, don't you go into court every day and you argue American sign on it for your injunction? And she said yes. And I said, Well, that's a patent case. Right? Okay. So very important intellectual property, right? The air we breathe. So EAPC, right, European patent applications. You pull up the different FinTech, different owners, and it tells you so much about what's happening in this environment of E commerce, right.
And so,
like monetary system for time I'm going to leave everybody to read that it's quite a bit, but in an abstract for a patent, it's very important to describe what it is right? And then you look at these these different areas. So that's what it protects the acronym. It must be available in my seven inventive step, it must have usefulness you know, you want to have a patent parachute on one's head wouldn't be very useful. No, just take off. Right.
So
when you think about what a patent is, you're not an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or process in general. We have doing something is that hard? can be sometimes but sometimes you have many great examples. So speeding along because I've got five minutes on my car insurance left. You know, I just want to highlight some personalities because, you know, let's bring this alive Fredo Rona, Eastman Jack is a seamstress in Tobago salons, she was able to get protection for this collapsible ruler, the U dazzle ruler that you see on the screen, and she was able to get patent protection through an MOU that the government of China and Tobago has with Chileans, one of the international patent search and examination authorities, bringing the cost of IP down. It's one thing as legislators we have to look at E services, bringing the cost of these things down, bringing it to our SMEs and showing how it's not a legal construct from 20 years ago. In firms and then seeing how it can be effective. We have moved from 100% people filing but 98% online filing of which the majority are local SMEs, women, and others because you demystify IP system and that is true no small feat of a fantastic legal team as a denoise of DPS borough, smash the Mirage let us continue with salon shot and others driving us forward and see in division. So in my three minutes,
you know, how does it impact us
5% of the GDP and in many other Commonwealth countries, comes from the creative industries comes from digital trade comes from our music, our language, our culture, our traditional knowledge, our brands, and when we can really use IP to protect this ring fencing is 5% of jobs. And it's thrives even in the worst of times like the pandemic when it was Jamaica came in at 5% with its rich cultural heritage or trying to be ago, St. Vincent. This is what we have to look at in terms of economic diversification, you know, ministries of innovation and stuff pushing the way forward. So and this is a full breakdown of how it impacts when you map the Trinidad and Tobago carnival it's gonna happen in a week's time you map all the other carnivals will light you map our creative festivals you see how it contributes? Right? So oh no and Intellectual Property Office and really unlocked potential. All of us have industrial property systems. Where it's online, you can fail. And you have the potential to build out St. Vincent and the Grenadines has now gone further with the cloud transit vehicles following with IP services in the cloud, you know, then there is the WIPO publish for filing online WIPO file and others. So it is amazing now go we had to look at books now. We can just accept hundreds of marks in a day. I sit with my examiner's in what I call an intellectual property Panchayat. And we see you understand that yes, yes, very common well too. And we just go through files and accept and what that does it multiplies and brings confidence to your offices because you can get things done 10 times faster than the traditional people we so it's one thing to look at we have to modernize because this is serious money that does sit on right and these this is what I spoke about earlier. This is the potential. The IP Office of Transit bigger went from 5.4 million to 10 million in two years during the pandemic unlocking this. We are revenue earners and we support your global economy of our legislators. And even in this conference at d3 Fire. Remember there's talk about EDR and how you can unlock the digital divide. Because conflict is money time lawyers make more money. Yes, but imagine mediation. There is an there is the WIPO mediation center to deal with these disputes, franchising and fintech and patterns and all of those things all online at some of the cheapest rates, we should be looking at this to support our domain name disputes, and other areas, right. Intellectual property for business and my 10 seconds left, right. The IP diagnostics for SMEs are powerful if we utilize the power of our SMEs, put in regulations for online filing online systems as these regulations show you not rocket science, right? All of these are not going to leave and very importantly unlock the power of our treaties, true trips, the Madrid, The Hague, the Marrakech, the Beijing, and all of these things that Mr. Khan looking at me with the time go on, here it is. So with that set the global route to global branding. This is what the conversation is about global branding for entrepreneurs, Trinidad and Antigua and I end with Connor Kahn on our Attorney General where do I pose representative and so I am here to take Am I allowed questions
begun so thank you as always when elevating presentation, and I just like to give one person in the audience did lucky question because we just have time for one question.
I wish I hadn't done this well.
We way thank you just if you can introduce yourself and just speak into the microphone. My name is
Bob otherwise, I work with what is a Caribbean on prior informed consent, benefit sharing and producing
beautiful question, you know, Pakistan West Indies fantastic collaboration and the cricket field. Yeah. So let me be quick because we are maybe
as a region, preparing any database of traditional models. Yes.
So okay. There are several, you know, I speak I didn't I didn't have time. But you know, when you look at our repo in the Commonwealth, what they've done with regional IP systems, with the manual protocol and all those kind of systems where now there's more regionalism, and that's where we have to unlock article 66. It speaks to industrial property collaboration at the regional level for CARICOM. To answer your question, the heads of IP and the technocrats are currently engaged in putting those provisions into a Caribbean pot and Convention, which we hope will be finalized in the next year. We also just settled Caribbean copyright management organization regulations. Also looking at the feasibility of a Caribbean Trademark Office and these things. So there's a lot of work going on at the at the CARICOM level, but certainly in the patents. That's why you can unlock the regional patent, which would be very useful because it's jurisdictional. And if you look at prior informed consent, were very importantly traditional knowledge and these things, there is a balancing act between that priority they need to exploit but also to protect the interests of our, you know, traditional persons, craftsmen, all the different ideas. So it's been given full attention. And you know, and you know, I would mention the work of Dr. Marcus Gulf in that respect. When in the Kingston ministerial in 2018. There was a lot of work that happened to make sure that PRC and these things could find a place in a convention at the regional level, at the international level, of course, you know, the IGC goes to a diplomatic conference. We all participated in that and celebrated that in the Commonwealth in June last year, looking at how we can have an international instrument to protect these emails. And with that said, I want to thank everyone remember what I've said, take all SMEs forward with E commerce and these it is quite possible it can be done and we owe it to our team. I didn't get time to even talk about it. collateralization using that the worth of your copyrights to help our artists and the Caribbean and their wintry is it is so important and they are projects in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, truly IDB looking at how we can collateralize that's again
thank you very much Reagan for have very, very vibrant and thought provoking presentation. At this time. I'd like to proceed to our panel discussion and I'd like to invite our panelists to join us this morning upfront. Introducing our Chair of our panel, Mr. Chris Southworth, who is the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom, and also with us in person is Mr. Warrick Ward, the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Services Commission of Barbados. joining us virtually is going to be Mr. John Aldridge, Chief Executive Officer of the Trinidad and Tobago International. financial cooperation, as well as Felicity
for Jaffa.
Country Manager of Z money BB betas, if you can just give them a warm welcome while it puts up the screen for visual presenters. It and while they're doing that, I think I can hand over to Chris who will do his intro and take it from here
Hello, everybody,
my name is Chris Southworth is bashes already introduced a little bit more about me tomorrow, where I'll be doing a full session on Unity three frameworks and standards toolkits for cross border trade. Can I just confirm whether we have Felicity on the
line between Oh, she's in the session. John's John's on
John is on, John. Hey, morning, everyone. While we're waiting
to see if Felicity is with us, let's start off with John and Warwick. If I can, so we're just gonna talk broadly about FinTech, sandbagging. sandboxing Sonos sound bite sandboxing to some of the BGS.
So what are
these terms? Because I think sometimes they get used very loosely and it's not always entirely clear what we mean by either. So I'm going to just spend a little bit of time just trying to define those and then talk a little bit about the sort of regulatory environment around particularly around the sort of fintechs fight finance and what that means for b2c and b2b in terms of cross border trade, which is where I come from. So I'm just gonna, before we get started, just ask Warwick and John just to introduce themselves if I can come to you, John, first on the screen. Can you just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and what your interests are for this session.
Sure, I just want to start off I think it was very unfair at this panel to have to follow the rally which is energetic presentation, but hopefully we can maintain that. Hello Talia, I'm to stretch the tendon or I can make it in person. So I am John Aldridge, the chief executive officer to try and Tobago International Finance Center. And basically we are a government state agency under the Ministry of Finance and our objectives is really about pushing Trinidad and Tobago towards a cashless society. And we sort of executing on that plan by sort of focusing on three core objectives that are basically related, accelerating the digitization of payments across the public sector. Working to increase the financial inclusion levels within society. So really focusing on the unbanked and the underbanked. And then by pushing those two objectives, one of the sort of realities we will face which is we realize that there's an absolute need, and I guess this panel will sort of address it in terms of having syntek We play a sort of a key role in terms of providing the capabilities for the traditional finance sector, but also at the same time, why we call design and the experiences and the applications and the interfaces for the citizens and for customers to really use the solution. To really see it as a as a shared objective.
And work can I ask you to introduce yourself?
Sure. Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us for this session. Which I think is a quite important session given you know, where digital economy is going. We heard this morning about financial inclusion, I think is very relevant to our, our side of the world. And our candies are represented here. My My name obviously is Warwick Ward, the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Services Commission. This is day 18 of my recent surgeon at the Bessie have re entered the fray there and I think that you know, we are the non bank regulator meaning along with the central bank, they're responsible for ensuring the regulation of the entire financial system and Barbados so with that, I would just like to leave it to the questions and our discussion, to learn a little bit more about what you're doing with fintech.
As much work to John, if I can come to you with the first question. Can you just explain what what do you mean by fintechs?
does that actually mean talk about b2c Here?
Are we talking about b2b business to business or are we talking about all of it or where are the practices around that term?
That's a good question. And I you know, from being at the IFC, just over a year now, you know, when traditionally when you learn about FinTech quickly as it relates to not just even rbny but globally, you are largely talking about payments, right? You are largely to have more peer to peer type payments and so forth. But in the world that we have been doing realize that the term FinTech has actually sort of expanded a lot more so you know, when I see FinTech, I am talking about basically, where we where we have seen even I would say what I'm sort of observing regionally where you had traditional technology companies, ICT companies sort of pivoting to really provide what I would call Consumer fees and customer fees and type applications sittin on top of the sort of core banking certain on top, leveraging the rails of the visas and the MasterCards, and so forth. So I centac Basically, from what I've seen is really sort of expanded to provide and what I would call the reals between the financial sector and your sort of citizen business and government and various use cases.
Yeah, it's,
I think it's quite a complex growing space, isn't it? Certainly in the trade environment over the last five years. We've seen fintechs play almost zero role in trade finance delivery, to 2020 to 30% of all trade finance, delivery. Now, the serious the large trade banks, just in the world and now seriously talking about disintermediation completely, because of the role of fintechs and credit rating important space. My next term work can I come to you? I'll get it right this time. sandboxing not sound bite. No sandbagging. sandboxing. What do we mean by that? Because that's another one that gets thrown around a lot.
If you're, I mean, if you think about what is a sandbox, traditionally, is basically a space that you set up for your kids playing where they will be monitored. There'll be they'll make sure that nothing happens. You can see what they're doing. There. Don't wander off outside of your view. You can think of that for the FinTech sandbox is really a space, a remote space has been set up for new and emerging technologies, where the regulator might not be, you know, totally ofay of these complex, how they work. And so you want to make sure that they're in a remote space. They don't pose a risk to the system or to the consumers. It also allows for within a live space, it allows for the feedback to these new entities or these innovative entities. And so that once you're you're sure you have some sort of comfort, that you know it's theirs, they don't pose a risk to the system, then you can allow them to operate within the system freely. So basically, it's just a remote space where they can be observed, the new technologies can be observed, and also that you have you're aware of the types of risks are in place within the live environment,
places to play.
I like that as great. Innovation is obviously a big part of this. John, can I come to you in terms of success? What does success look like for you in two to three years and if I can sort of double up on that question, where are you looking for best practice? What sort of lessons are you drawing from and where are you drawing them
from? And, you know, it's where,
if I look at it, it's not only a sort of Trinidad and Tobago challenge, right? It's our regional challenge. So it's one of the things that we are doing at trc because when you look across the region, I believe our problems are largely the same right? There is a huge challenge when it comes to having effective strategies capabilities to deal with the unbanked and the underbanked. Right. I believe it's the same across all the way up the Bahamas, right. You simply don't have the uptake of these sorts of technologies. I mean, think about it in recent times. You know, the Caribbean region has been leading in a lot of ways globally in terms of, you know, the Bahamas, and even only we see us launch and cbdc pilots. Right. And I believe they are the fears right now where they're sort of reevaluating, looking at the uptake look into how to expand and that right, but I'm not telling tales out of school that I don't think the the uptake has been sort of phenomenal. Right? And again, it goes back to the fundamental sort of core hypothesis, right? There's when we talk about fender right what it is exactly we are trying to solve the new regenerate. We know, Ash is a big issue. We understand the challenges we have in terms of the European Union, we see the regions and so forth. We understand, you know, the fact that funny counterterrorism financing, aspects on cash shorter lead to the shadow economy and so forth. So if I had to look the next two to three years, and again, when you look at the FinTech ecosystem, there was recently a convention that took place in Barbados last year, I believe, late last year, called FinTech islands. And I was unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it there. But I was remarking to someone that if that conference happened a year ago, you'll probably have five people in the room. That conference that over 200 people attended and you had a large contingent of what I call syntek companies within the region. The island pays do we pay is the pay wise, you know, you had a lot of lot of syntek entities showing up all doing work. Penny Pincher Rickerby, an island had a FinTech representative attended that conference and the oil will cannot provide them what I would call solutions use cases to dealing with that unbanked aspect of it. So if I had to look two or three years from now, I definitely think the Caribbean is a vibrant market for incubating FinTech because of the fact that we have this large challenge of the unbanked. And there's clearly a disconnect with all people see their relationships with what I call the traditional financial institutions. And I do believe that the FinTech revolution is really going to help the Caribbean and the banking sector so that deal on increasing levels of financial inclusion
thanks so much, John, and Ron, come
to you. This idea of FinTech islands, I like that too. How do we kind of foster this FinTech community across across an island network for one, or you could actually replicate that across any global region in fact, how do we do that? How do we scale solutions ideas? You and I were talking to slightly before that, you know, there's a big governance gap at times between where the private sector is and where government regulations are and laws are often far, far behind, in some cases, way back to the 1800s I mean, it's quite extraordinary. So how do we foster a legal policy environment in order for this to flourish?
I mean, I like that question. And I actually listened to Helens presentation this this morning, which was quite a good presentation. And if you if you remember the the Attorney General, he spoke about a piece of legislation that we worked on. I was also on that committee, way back in 2000.
And the banks were
interested we as as as we just heard, you know, you didn't see any sort of, you didn't see any sort of uptake or urgency towards dealing with E banking or E commerce within the past five years, six years. We have seen this exponential growth. And after think about, you know, the legal principles around any type of regulation, especially as it deals with FinTech necessity, is it necessary that we have you know, this what type of regulation is it necessary to be regulated? For us? Obviously, yes, because we have to think about the systemic risks. Oh, you also have to think about those same individuals or consumers who are you know, we are catering for in terms of financial inclusion they're usually the ones that are affected most whenever there's a crisis or something happens within the industry. proportionality. This is where you tend to have a little a little challenge is the effort that is being made by the regulator is it proportional and once we are able to get that done correctly, we should be able to come up with a flexible enough sounds like an oxymoron. A flexible enough legislation that can deal with, you know the type of risks that we currently see legal certainty. Want to make sure and we have all the time a lot of the the entities, the new entities, the innovative entities, they come to us and they want to know what is it that we need to do in order to be regulated? One of the challenges that we have which I will also speak about later, is we also need that type of infrastructure internally, capacity, the technical capacity as well as the human capacity to be able to understand what sort of risks are being posed by these new entities. Sometimes as a regulator, we're not able to properly understand and that's where sometimes the sound box becomes that opportunity for us to properly understand what it is that they're doing. And obviously, we want to make sure it is an efficient piece of legislation that adds some efficiency in order to and that goes along with the flexibility in order to make sure that comes up the right time. Right piece on the right amount of weight or below. So these are the key things which I think should go into any piece of legislation. Of course, you know, we sometimes don't have that flexibility, because a lot of the current laws are set for bricks and mortar. They don't contemplate this type of innovation. And so that's the challenge if we're able to have legislation allows for this. Sort of flexibility by requires a framework. So in order for for that to operate properly, we need to have the framework properly understood and implemented and followed. So that we can meet all of these various innovative elements will change all the time. It will change. So we need to think about how we will structure the legislation to allow for that flexibility outside of Sunset based legislation or sunset type legislation.
And just just before I go to John, I mean, just on the back of that because that's one of the points I'm throwing around in my head is do we do we just need a different environment for digital allows for more dialogue on a constant rolling basis more dynamic environment between regulators, government and industry? Or do we just follow the traditional processes?
Yes, I'll, I'll give me as well. But yes, I think we need to have that type of dialogue. But of course, it requires again, coming back to frameworks coming back to the capacity, coming back to these things to make sure that there's everyone is stepping on the same page. are moving locks don't always happen that way. So that's one of the challenges that we currently face. I think that the sandbox idea works, but again, you need to have the parameters around the sandbox like I did, to make sure that everyone understands why we have it, why and how it will function more effectively. That's a start or in order to get that sort of collaboration. But it is not the end the end all be all because you still have outside of that they'll still have a legislative process to follow,
which in itself can take a long time as well. Right. Sure. John, I mean, the companies and the organizations and stakeholders you engage with, you know if there's sort of two things that they asked for, or two barriers that they come against all the time that you hear about the most what are they?
I think you guys kind of set it up very nicely for me because exactly that conversation you will have in the sort of problem statement and the hypothesis that led us to basically start an initiative which we will be launching at the end of June and within Toronto, we go in terms of FinTech Innovation Hub, because exactly what Mr. Ward was describing there, particularly, you know, when you look at the rules of engagement and things are changing so quickly, and regulatory certainty is something again, that is always required, but we have there's so much energy and there's so much investment and excitement around the sector, right. I could imagine it is probably occupying majority of central bankers times going forward right and you know, even coming back to your question in terms of some of the queries that we get, right, we realize that you have a lot of people who have ideas, right, and the observing externally and they see opportunities where they could play a role and provider for a solution, but they don't quite understand themselves the parameters even if they require regulatory supervision, and based on what they are looking to do. I realize that whole education spec can help and to even refine their business models and even understanding what they want to do and even providing what I would call sort of pre guidance before the sandbox stage because Mr. Worker probably attest because I you know, we hear about it, even in our jurisdiction. You have a lot of people approaching the regulators, without even knowing if they even what they're proposing needs to be regulated. You know, it's a lot of ideas a lot of ideation. But it's not yet a real company, right? It's not yet proven, you know, it's still a proof of concept, prototype and fees. So this is why we saw the need to kind of make that investment and we are partnered with the United Nations Cup Development Fund, Helen, I think she's still on the call. To really provide that facility and that service, health index, understand exactly what are you trying to do what you're trying to achieve who you are trying to address, you know, and to kind of streamline that follow up process. If I don't answer the two things that we are about is one we would like to understand how can we do business and try and Tobago and you know, from that, I think every FinTech doesn't want to do business on one island, right? Everybody has a plan Caribbean vision because when liquid Korean only English speaking so I'm talking about 6 million people, right? The Caribbean itself is a very, very small market, but it's a very, very important what I would call proven ground. So FinTech not just any region, but for companies external because you have a lot of new solutions. established markets are very saturated. The entire industry is looking for what I call emerging economies where they can plug in their solutions, get them proof of concepts, and then that allows them to sort of scale out to it. So the two things that we can do here is, you know, obviously trying to figure out whether they need to be regulated or not be regulated and then understanding what I would call the regional ecosystem that how do they plug in what's the situation with the banks, you know what what's happening with the payment systems? Is that talent on the ground, you know, is there other fintechs that we can talk to, you know, so this is why we try and to sort of bring those three components together and out that network effect since the talent and then obviously, the understanding in terms of how we should operate or even you know,
where the bucket should fit into.
Yeah, so it's a really good point that around. industry can be very inarticulate at times canta in terms of wanting to do something but not be very articulate about what what it is that it's asking, which makes it very difficult from from a government point of view or an agency point of view to solve. Just a lot of the problems we talk talk about around fintechs. The market itself whether it's dealing with fraud, whether it's dealing with AML KYC bureaucracy, digital identity adoption, FinTech, these are there's endless, long list of opportunities. But a lot of it has nothing to do with government. It's got to do with industry leadership, and the industry itself can solve a lot of these problems, a bit with some support from an enabling Legal Policy Framework. How much would you like to see industry take the lead more? Or do you think that are they waiting for you and you're waiting for them? Is this a chicken and an egg?
It's always a chicken and an egg question. But I think I don't think the industry will actually they're actually waiting for us. And I'm happy when we see a proof of concept come to us. It is the ones where there isn't a proof of concept. And they don't come to us that we tend to get very worried about because if they come to us, it means that they want to be regulated. There's a degree of credibility that that they will see as part of, you know, being regulated. So again, I think the industry themselves, they're the industries themselves, they're interested in making sure on a general skill, they're on the right path. So I don't think the issue is one or the other. needs to happen is everyone to sit together and understand you know what, what it is that the regulator is responsible for what you're trying to do and try to achieve. And also from the industry side, we understand that you know, there's significant benefits to be had from these innovative concepts. Sometimes the complexity of the activity itself lends to challenges which the industry themselves are not fully aware of, in terms of the impact that it can have. A lot of the things that we see are not old risks, and since they are simply the more that which they occur is different. You still have the same issues, operational risks, governance challenges, credit risks, no privacy. These are always available are always the risk that you will see on any type of system even bricks and mortar Mikey is just how it is done. And the more that he embarks on the same same individuals that were looking to help in the financial inclusion, as well as they might have a knock on effect for the system. So that is really what we like to have a handle on early before we release this type of industries into the film
market.
If I can come to you, you've got a roomful of people across this amazing Commonwealth set of nations that we're all part of if there's one thing that you think we should all go away with, what would that be?
I if I had to give one thing to sort of go with and you're right, you know, the Commonwealth has done an excellent job even last year when they presented their FinTech toolkit. We facilitated our session entrant debate with regulators, governments private sector in the room. You know, I recognize and I think I saw it in the chat. That you know, there's a lot of new terminology. There's a lot of new models, you know, this is definitely the growing is still moving here in FinTech. It's not something I would like to leave with, but I think it it's something that I would like to encourage more of, in terms of dialogues around what I call this financial inclusion challenge that we I haven't I think Fintech is absolutely a subset of it. But I think financial inclusion and sort of having more conversations at a regional level, and understanding what I said even at a Commonwealth level, right, because again, when you look at India and what India is experiencing and what they have gone through, you know, it largely resembles a lot of what you see in happening in your region as at scale, right. So I do think the Commonwealth has the ability to really sort of share in those experiences and really help these financial inclusion programs. Taking those lessons learned, but I think my sort of ask is not necessarily a takeaway is that we definitely need I would like to see more discussions and more support for come in, particularly within the region in terms of dealing with those challenges. I think that's a gap and I think that is a tight I think we'll lift all boats, even as we relate to FinTech and you know, the old digital transformation of government, etc.
And what about you what in terms of the sort of Commonwealth collaboration we're seeing some fantastic examples of India and Singapore are we at the moment particularly but but all over the Commonwealth? There's lots of innovation going on. What would what would you say would be the thing we should take away with what you know, what was the action call to action?
I would just say ditto. I think we need to collaborate more. We need to have more and more regular meetings with regards to where we are going. Sorta like a roadmap. I know there. There isn't what we can say right now as an end point. But we need to have more of a roadmap as to where we expect to go and the milestones along which where we expect to go in in the future. One of the things that we have at the within the classes is the FinTech FinTech Advisory Committee. Which is made up of Industry, Trade regulators, and they're sort of advisors to new techniques, new initiatives, new things that are happening within the FinTech space. This sort of collaboration will help us or guide us during things of what type of regulation we are providing the industry. So I think that's, that's, in essence, what we were looking for
brilliant. Well, roadmaps and more collaboration. I
guess it's possible.
Can we move to some questions from the audience? Sure.
And then questions and answers. Yeah. Well, we can go straight to q&a now. Yeah.
So we do have a question that we received. One second. What, what role did TT TT RFC aim to play with regard supporting the enabling legal, legal and regulatory environment to enable fintechs to thrive and do you plan on working with regulators together to foster that
ecosystem? So
I think the the the term that we need to know ahead is really around capacity building. So what's this we're seeing, right, there's a lot of new terminology, the problems that the same is just coming in different rappers, right. And obviously, lovin, when locally here with our central bank, you know, how does it DTSC play a role in terms of where we see ourselves as that sort of public private entity that can understand these challenges, understand these entities and, and work with our joint regulatory bodies in terms of capacity building and helping them understand and assess these business models and these entities and the technology so that's definitely where we see ourselves on playing a rule because you know, as you know, when we talk about the one red stack and soup deck, which is a new sort of category of FinTech, where you see not necessarily in a rule on the external side, but basically be in FinTech, for the regulatory environment, right. I think that is something you know, that I think is going to be a little more pervasive in your region, when you look when you speak to the even the banks and so forth, you know, encouraging that sort of adoption. So you know, we that is where we want him to play our role in terms of capacity building.
Did spaces not invent things like LEO satellites and so on, because they don't fit neatly into existing regulatory frameworks, and even to simply get a response times in writing from regulators is frustrating. And therefore, we're talking about building digital economies, but at the same time, frustrating companies are ready, willing and able to invest and provide solutions in the market. So Felicity I don't know if you want to share your experience in moving and this was technology in Africa and Africa has been one of the leading countries continent in the world in terms of fintech. So to really bring that technology here to Caribbean It is unfortunate some of the frustrations that you and other companies facing so would you like to speak to that please?
Felicity Did
you hear the question? Can you hear us and if not, maybe one of the other panelists could speak even though maybe Z money's expert sense but perhaps about other companies that have been trying to establish in Greek towards good you like to speak to that. I think the money is actually operating here in Barbados, but not necessarily about the company itself, but about sort of the regulation the Why are some of these companies meeting brick
walls basically.
Here is Felicity to take a new house
evidently not Yeah.
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we like to go right ahead with your response.
I don't know Yeah, most of the question if you can just for my benefit.
No, I just basically wanted in summary to tell us about your experience in establishing the your company here in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean Marcus.
Okay, thank you. And apologies to everyone accept challenges join and it's been an experience for us and for.
Experience and my business has expanded into because there's the regular rattling off and have to think that would be the same across the globe across America as we've gone into have been the constant engagements with a regulator to get them to understand business
goal and operation as I say.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, if I do so that my audio can sound better. Nice. Pardon me. So I find that a lot of it takes a lot of engagement and deep dive in with the regulator to be able to explain clearly and to the end to the to the very tiny, minut detail, exactly as a FinTech, what platforms you're going to be running, how exactly you're going to operate in order for the regulator to have acquisition for our kind of business. And in Barbados, considering that there has been no business like ours, it's taken a lot of time to go through these engagements and reach a place where we're licensed to come into the market and set up the next level on that. So as to be able to start engaging customers to understand what kind of service that I think like is going to provide because what the everyday person is used to as the bank, what is what I what they are going to do the questions that keep coming up with customers, even banks and other b2b It's what exactly is your business? What are you have created? Are you a bank? Are you not a bank? Lanza one question that takes who engage and payments quote answer, is that the prime question that you face in the markets, especially in markets, where my kids are quite new to the industry, so the question has always been Are you a bank? And then the other thing also is that you find that existing regulation and existing practices because they've been built and developed around
you have to
twice as hard to my left laughs worked twice as hard to be able to start to get read later. I appreciate your business, and even your reporting. The format in which you're reporting can be very specific to your business advice in the beginning. It's all tailored to the traditional banking model. That's been my experience so far. I'm not sure if anyone can hear me.
We can we can hear you. We've just been given a four or five five minute notice just to start wrapping up. It's great to have you with us, Felicity and as you can hear, I was talking from this end as well. Do you want to just try it? I think I think the the gist of that was it's pretty hard. Yeah. To engage with you. Laters I mean, I'd certainly from the UK side. I've heard the similar sorts of things, but although I would couch it sometimes as to what's the expectation to organizations like ours sort of get caught a little bit in between these two worlds, so but I mean, from your point of view,
how would you answer that?
I mean, I think I think we have a number of challenges. One obviously if it is a new product that's been entered into the market we would want to engage with any supplier of these services to make sure that we properly understand the risks and we properly make sure and we probably want to understand the you have the mitigating, you know things to make sure that this risk doesn't spill over into the market. A lot of the times as well to what you will find it and I mentioned it before is that there isn't capacity, especially if you're talking things like you know, triple entry for like the blockchain, these types of new technologies coming into for there isn't the capacity within the framework of the regulatory spirit to properly deal with this type of of new institution right off the bat. And so it would require a longer series in terms of the engagement as opposed to if it was say, bricks and mortar bank. The other challenge is that we have to fit these entities within current legislation. So we can't give licenses or we can't give approvals to things outside of the space or the legislation. So then you have to think of what type of solution will be ledger to ledger for this the ledger list. Legislative is the solutions that will be you know, required for this type of entity, whether this is something that can fit into that bucket, and often we are not able to do it. And so you might have a longer lead time for this type. of activity before we find a solution.
Yeah, I think it comes back to a point we were discussing earlier around the need for dialogue, doesn't it? I think when there's there's a when there's a need for government to change regulation and laws, then obviously there's an enormous delay when actually businesses are just trying to get off the ground and try to bring opportunities into the market. You know, from my perspective, and I come with a business perspective here is that that element of dialogue to the capacity issue. This is one of the areas I think where the Commonwealth and other regional and grouping entities can actually really help I hear capacity raised all the time. Everywhere I go in the world, there's a capacity gap of some shape or form. It's not in any particular area of the world, I think, especially around the area of technology and finance. There's just a lack of capacity and skills right across the board. And that's where I think, you know, the more scope for collaboration through networks like the Commonwealth, you think the Commonwealth has got an enormous USP here because of our shared legal kind of frameworks. There is a commonality there which other global networks just don't have you got to go country by country. I'll talk about that tomorrow. Whereas the Commonwealth, you can work in one group and you've got a shared basis of understanding knowledge and legal framework to accelerate solutions where others can't. So I think I'm not going to get in the way of your lunch and we're conscious which is next. We've had some technological difficulties on this panel. We got Felicity there for a couple of minutes, but not long enough unfortunate because I think she would have brought an interesting, b2c perspective to this conversation. But I hope you found this an insightful conversation. Thank you to my two great speakers. I mean, you couldn't get to better speakers than John Warwick. I'm very honored to sit here with both of them. And it's a great honor to sit here with all of you and all of those online as well. And I hope this has been a useful session. Thank you very much.
On that note, I would like to thank you, Chris. That was an exceptional panel, very informative, as well, our panelists, and I can handle was going to do a little bit of housekeeping and direct you to where the good food is located. Where we will resume. Thank you.
All right, good afternoon, and thank you again. For a wonderful session this morning. So lunch today will be in the capatch restaurant where you all had breakfast this morning. So they are ready for you all across there. We have one hour for lunch, and we would like to get back into the room at 132 15. To restart the program. Just a few things evaluation form. We are having an evaluation form at the end of every day, because we would like to capture the data and the relevant information. So we are asking that you visit our website at WWW dot CTU dot i n t and there is a button there with the evaluation form. It should be posted every lunchtime and we are asking that you please complete the evaluation form at the end of each day. So during the coffee break this afternoon I'll give another reminder to fill out the evaluation form but we do look forward to having a good sample size so if we have everyone filling out the form we will greatly appreciate that. Also, cocktail on this evening in the foyer area. So from 6pm to eight. We invite all of you the participants to please join us in the foyer, business casual, but we do unwind we're in the Caribbean, whereby a pool so we're going to have some fun and enjoy each other's company this evening between six and 8pm. So we look forward to seeing you there. So I know invite you for lunch. It's at the cocoa patch restaurant and we will resume at 115 You