CEO’s Message

This issue of the Quarterly marks the end of the 2019 calendar year, but also the first quarter of the 2019-20 fiscal year for the T&T IFC. The Company’s retrospection and growthin the last year facilitated the implementation of several strategic initiatives in this quarter, and we were also fortunate to witness previous initiatives begin to bear fruit. This is especially heartening as we remain cognizant of our role as an impetus for positive change within the financial services sector. 

One of the major achievements was the soft launch of the FinTech Association of Trinidad & Tobago (FinTech T&T) in early December. This was one of the initiatives that we identified in the Roadmap for Developing a FinTechEcosystem in Trinidad and Tobago. We first presented this roadmap at the 2018 ICATT Annual Conference, along with the positives of moving T&T toward being a “cashless society”. FinTech T&T will work closely with private sector, government agencies, and regulators to provide opportunities to advocate, collaborate and educate stakeholders on opportunities in the local FinTech sector. This will be a testament to impactful public-private sector engagement towards the goal of Financial Services development. This will in turn have a knock-on effect of enhancing T&T’s value proposition to outside investors. 

In a similar vein, we sought to solidify old partnerships and create new ones in the quarter. We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Oxford Business Group (OBG), which will allow us to leverage their international network and engage in critical thought leadership through OBG’s The Report: Trinidad and Tobago publication. In November 2019, at the ICATT Conference we connected with professionals in the Financial Services sector and took the opportunity to introduce them to the Financial Services Directory which is set to come onstream in 2020.

While there is a lot of buzz around the year 2020, both locally and globally, the T&T IFC remains focused on our goals and we believe that we will continue to see the results of the hard work that the team continues to put in. Our achievements and a glimpse into upcoming work are captured in our 2018–19 Annual Report, which also includes our audited financial statements for the period. These  were received and approved at our 09th Annual Meeting -held on December 13th – well within the stipulated timelines for state agencies. Once again, the T&T IFC has demonstrated its ability to remain agile, while still being accountable for its delivery to the people of Trinidad and Tobago. 

In the next three quarters of this fiscal year, I look forward to sharing with you more successes – building upon our existing financial services investors, as well as information on developments that will change the financial services landscape, and by extension T&T.

I would like to wish the readers a happy and prosperous 2020!