Gov’t to Look at Bank Insolvency Law

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, has said that the Government is looking into a bank insolvency law for Jamaica, which will clearly define how and in what circumstances a bank can be declared broke.
Minister Shaw, who was addressing the opening of a three-day banking conference at the Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay yesterday (March 24), said that implementing modern bank insolvency legislation is important to ensuring economic and financial system stability.
He informed that already, legislation relating to the Bank of Jamaica and the Financial Services Commission were being reviewed to strengthen their monitoring roles and “we are certainly going to be looking at promulgating a bank insolvency law in Jamaica.”

Deputy General Council of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ross Leckow, addresses the opening of the bank insolvency conference yesterday (March 24) at the Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, St. James. Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, looks on at 2nd right.

Turning to other matters, Minister Shaw said that the administration is committed to fundamental economic reforms to tighten how government is run.
“The present economic realities have demanded that we must now ‘draw brakes’ and confront the issues in a courageous and bold way. We must now have a tightening and ensure that government is run more efficiently, is lean, and is delivering services in an efficient way,” he stated.
He said that the Public Sector Transformation Unit, which was established as part of the measure, is now “busy looking at how we can re-organise government to achieve those objectives.”
The Finance Minister, in the meantime, expressed appreciation to all individuals and businesses that participated in the recent debt exchange programme, which, he said “turned out to be a mammoth success”.

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, has a light moment with Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Deposit Insurance Corporation (JDIC), Antoinette McKain, at the opening of the bank insolvency conference yesterday (March 24) at the Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, St. James. The three-day event is organised by the JDIC in association with the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC).

“I want to indicate our government’s thanks to all stakeholders, those who lent us money, individual investors, retail investors, securities dealers and banks. We entered into an unprecedented debt exchange programme of $70 billion, representing our entire stock of domestic debt. We exchanged it out from an average of 17 per cent interest rate to 12.25 per cent,” he noted.
Citing the 99.2 per cent voluntary participation rate, he said that the “world market is examining this as something that is unprecedented; they have never seen it anywhere in the world before”.
“Thanks to all . I believe that Jamaica is ready for action in the economy. It is time for production and productivity. It is time to create wealth, rather than to live in the illusion of wealth,” Mr. Shaw added.
The three-day conference, which is looking at ‘Bank Insolvency in the Caribbean’ is organised by the Jamaica Deposit Insurance Corporation in association with the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC).
The conference will examine the issues, open up discourse and potentially guide policy direction relating to bank regulation, resolution and insolvency, with specific reference to recent local, regional and international cases, and structural reforms through legislation and other actions in key world financial centres.