the nerds ”, technology is rapidly redefining the way financial institutions compete, do business and interact with their customers. from online and mobile payments to biometric authorization, the rise of cloud computing means many more financial transactions can be done faster, automatically and at lower cost. financial technology companies like pay pal and xoom resemble banks, but are not. yet they are changing the ways in which people borrow and save, pay for things, buy foreign exchange and send money. technology giant google is making serious inroads into financial services with the introduction of a new payment system called google wallet. these global forces will fundamentally change the profile of jobs in finance in the coming decade and beyond. at the central bank, for instance, we have a growing demand for specialized financial supervision skills in anti - money laundering, specialty insurance, actuarial science, cyber security and operational risk. as financial services professionals it may be of interest to you, to know that almost 15 per cent of central bank ’ s new employees since i assumed office are in the area of financial supervision and another 10 per cent are in economic research. i have sought to build capacity in strategic areas to ensure we fulfil our economic and financial stability mandate. as the country look to the future, we must ensure we are generating the right skills to stay relevant and competitive. in thinking about how to generate the breadth and depth of skills, i believe we can draw lessons from the actions policymakers usually take when managing a financial crisis. three distinct remedies are usually applied to a financial sector in crisis : recapitalization programmes, measures to boost liquidity, and a sober look at how the financial ecosystem should work in the future. as a starting point, trinidad and tobago needs to be able to draw talent from a bigger pool than it currently has in the financial services industry. recapitalization is needed to draw out the talent that currently remains untapped. here we should quickly leverage our trinidadian diaspora community. many of us have a narrow definition of the diaspora as those born in the country but presently living outside the country. however, if we include others with historical links to trinidad and tobago, our diaspora becomes at least 360, 000 strong, consisting of highly skilled workers, graduates from colleges and universities, management and other professionals. we need to find ways to fully tap into this potential labour pool for human capital and financial investments. second, in the same way central banks took steps to increase liquidity in

within our institutional framework of 19 different national fiscal policies, nor is it desirable given our independence from fiscal authorities. moreover, the aggregate stance is broadly neutral today, and if its allocation across countries can be questioned, it would not be desirable for it to become much more active given the high legacy debt and the requirements of our fiscal rules. as regards the second type of policy – those aimed at removing the effective lower bound on short - term rates – perhaps the most prominent proposal is to either to tax currency holding a la gesell or abolish it altogether, and hence to remove the arbitrage between bonds and cash. 8 one can indeed imagine several advantages associated with such a policy, on top of pushing the lower bound further into negative territory. for example, tax on cash can act like a tax on illegal activities and would foster greater transparency. in addition, we could economise on the costs of storage and use of currency, which are not insignificant. there are important reasons, however, why it is difficult for policy - makers to give this option serious consideration. they have mainly to do with psychological and operational factors. the use of cash with a zero guaranteed nominal rate of return and a non - negative nominal interest rate on deposits is deeply ingrained in the psyche of economic agents. savers see o. blanchard, g. dell ’ ariccia, and p. mauro, 2010. “ rethinking macroeconomic policy ”, imf staff position note, february 12, 2010 ; and l. ball, 2013. “ the case for 4 % inflation, ” voxeu. see c. sims, 2014. “ coordinating monetary and fiscal policy to exit the zero lower bound ”. presentation made at the european central bank. https : / / www. ecb. europa. eu / events / pdf / conferences / 141215 / slides / sims _ slides. pdf. also, “ commentary on policy at the zero lower bound ”. ( 2010 ) ceps working paper no. 201. and s. schmitt - grohe and m. uribe, 2014. “ liquidity traps : an interest - rate - based exit strategy ”, the manchester school, 82, s1, september 2014, 1 – 14. see w. buiter, 2009. “ negative nominal interest rates : three ways to overcome the zero lower bound ”, nber working paper, no. 15118, and k. rogoff, 2014. “ costs