hope to stay in business for the long term, my concern will be that my customers get the best home they can truly afford. i will not encourage them to take a mortgage that requires a payment that their incomes cannot support, even if i can benefit from it in the short term, because i want to preserve my relationship with my client. they will be receptive when i market other services to them, and they will spread the word about my services. relationships build customer loyalty, and loyal customers stick with you in hard times. when going into business for yourself, it seems best to start with a sizeable equity commitment, and try to keep it intact, as your buffer against lean times. it is not a good idea to start a business with borrowed money, because you invariably start with no customers and therefore no revenue. you will need to fund yourself, start - up costs and much of the initial running costs, all out of your own resources, until you have built revenues to the breakeven level. what is more, things do go wrong, and you may find yourself losing some of the start - up capital as a result. if, in addition to all of this, your new venture has to meet bank service charges on a loan from the first month of operation, the chances of a successful launch are much reduced. indeed, your best bet is to launch your business while you are still in salaried employment, if possible, so that there is already a revenue stream to cover early expenses. bis central bankers ’ speeches i admit that this advice is not helpful to most of this audience, who are already in business, and suffering through some very trying times. i do think that those who may have lost their jobs and are seeking ways to employ their skills and experience in remunerative ways might bear these realities in mind. your best bet is to package your experience and expertise into a product or service which stands out in the crowd that you can sell from home, and to depend on marketing by word of mouth. for all of you who are struggling through the hard times the message is to make a realistic adjustment plan, based on pessimistic assumptions about the future, but with an eye to your long term survival. exactly what that involves will have to be worked out on a case by case basis, because there will be trade - offs, and the options available depend on your starting point. for example, for almost all of us, adjustment means having to shrink our operations

financial centres to the detriment of the caribbean. barbados was more fortunate in 2009. however, while barbados was in the top tier of the recent list of financial centres issued by g20, and therefore had no problem, the principle being applied was one of encouraging compliance through the power of reputational risk. as a consequence many countries within the region have hastened to put corrective actions in place. it now becomes clear that insurance companies are now being more closely monitored as entities which have significant potential for impacting financial system stability. following developments in the us, we in the caribbean have realized this to our chagrin. indeed one of the results of this realization was an extension of support by government to a major insurance company in the us and more recently in trinidad and tobago in not too dissimilar circumstances. indeed, it is interesting to note that the bis has included a unit in its office in basel for monitoring the financial stability of insurance companies, entities which were not formerly included in the financial institutions covered by the bis. other developments in terms of the widening scope of regulation are evident from the fact that whereas central banks in most developed economies previously had stated objectives of price stability and monetary stability, today many central banks who primarily focussed on a price stability objective are widening their expressed mandates to include financial stability. however, as a consequence some central banks are concerned that there is a disconnect between the responsibility for maintaining financial stability and the dependence on others for oversight of a number of financial entities which can influence that stability. however, the jacques de larossiere report presented recently to the imf comes down squarely on the side of placing responsibility for financial stability on the central banks. these developments underscore the importance of the synergies between regulation and compliance. we cannot defer compliance until all the needed revisions to oversight systems are put in place. it must be a simultaneous task. we must work with what we have even though there is need for adjustments. we must ensure that the guidelines we issue continue to be relevant and are framed to best achieve the desired objectives. given the rapid changes in technologies and instruments now available we must be sure that we are targeting the correct regulatory goals. much of my presentation has tended to deal with compliance in financial institutions. however i am aware that today ’ s seminar is a joint seminar with institute of accountants, so your concerns will not only be about financial firms. compliance in the corporate world will be high on your agendas. in this