In this news:
WITH the introduction of new technologies, Guyana’s outdated banking and financial sector is getting a facelift, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo has said.
The Vice-President at the time was responding to a question posed by an audience member, during day one of the Guyana Energy Conference and supply chain expo.
The question was related to whether the government is considering regulations to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions.
Jagdeo said that while they have been examining cryptocurrency, at this time, they cannot facilitate it.
“We had the Central Bank do some work on cryptocurrency and looking at its introduction, but I don’t think we are ready at this stage to go any further until we have done a major financial overhaul,” he said.
The Vice-President is of the belief that the financial sector can become a humbug and could slow down the massive growth that Guyana is seeing in the real sector, if it does not expand in complexity and instruments.
“That is why we’re trying to drag it out of the stone ages into an environment that is appropriate to support the expansion in the real sector,” Jagdeo said.
Further, several projects are being executed to aid in the digitisation of Guyana, he related, noting: “We’re digitising the government…we’re hoping our airport, within the next few months, would go paperless. This year, we are mounting cameras right across the country; we started doing that with software for facial recognition and that would have a big impact on security.”
He also said that they are issuing secure documents for every citizen to have a national identification card (ID) that would give the biometrics to start in deepening the financial services and to broaden the range of instruments that would be available for people to improve payment systems, among other things.
He said: “So we have our hands filled.”
However, once they get to that level of complexity, then elements such as crypto could be laid, provided the appropriate safeguards could be found and instituted, the Vice-President said.
The banking and financial sector is an important sector, which the government has been placing specific focus on in order to empower citizens to benefit from the massive economic transformation taking place across the country.
Access to financing is a main pillar for the establishment, growth and success of both small- and large-scale businesses, as well as the economic empowerment of individuals and households.
Under the stewardship of the PPP/C Government, Guyana’s financial sector has shown significant improvements in recent years in key performance indicators, reflecting a strengthening economy and robust regulatory oversight.
