Carrie Liddy, the founder of Keywitness Canada, agrees. Her company distributes certificates on the Web to help people and companies establish their identities over the Internet. The new SET protocol for secure credit card transactions, for instance, uses the certificates to curtail fraud. Keywitness recently announced a new offshore corporation in Barbados. Liddy said her partners insisted on avoiding the United States because of the excessive regulation.
Canadian banks have a large international presence, and the nation continues to trade with Cuba.
Liddy said that the United States' Helms-Burton act, which penalizes companies doing business with Cuba, is major impediment to working in the United States. The lack of regulation in the Caribbean also makes it easier to simply design cutting-edge banking systems without worrying about violating a regulation. This sentiment was echoed again and again by conference attendees. The process of trying to communicate with the island was a mixture of yesterday and tomorrow. A company employee said that was done to prevent people from hacking into the phone system to avoid toll charges.