The Prime Minister assured the industry and assured the nation that the new legislation would not put us at a competitive disadvantage. We have enacted legal restrictions and regulatory controls that are nowhere else to be found with such severity - not in any other offshore jurisdiction and most certainly not in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France or Germany. Bankers, trust companies, mutual fund administrators, corporate service providers, money-managers, investment advisers and ordinary bank customers will all tell you that in the short space of five months The Bahamas has been transformed into the most difficult place in the world to open a bank account or to engage in any other type of legitimate financial services activity. Our banking system has become over-regulated. It is now in danger of asphyxiation from red tape and overly intrusive oversight.
Bankers are no longer just bankers.
The new financial services legislation has turned them into policemen who have to spend more time policing and patrolling and investigating than attending to the business of banking for which they were trained. But it doesn t stop there. And it doesn t stop there either. The IBC business is dying out, evaporating, disappearing. And where do you think the IBC business is going to British colonies like the BVI and Anguilla.