Full overhaul of financial sector needed before govt implements crypto currency – VP Jagdeo

With the introduction of new technologies and the use of digital currency Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo revealed that the government is currently working to modernize the country’s financial sector in alignment with modern standards.
Jagdeo on Tuesday during day one of the Guyana Energy Conferenceand Supply Chain Expo highlighted that the government is currently working to revolutionizethe country’s financial sector.
He was at the time responding to a question posed by one of the attendees at the event. The question was related to whether Guyana is considering regulations to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions.
“We had the central bank do some work on cryptocurrency and looking at its introduction, but I don’t think we are ready at this stage to introduce any, to go any further until we have done a major financial overhaul.”

On this point, the VP noted that the modernization of the country’s financial sector is crucial. He highlighted that the currently outdated financial sector could pose a significant threat to the country’s economic development.
“We think that the financial sector can become a humbug, can become, can slow down the massivegrowth that we are seeing in the real sector if it doesn’t expand in complexity and instruments.And that is why we are trying to drag it out of the stone ages into an environment that is appropriate to support the expansion in the real sector.”
Once this overhaul is completed, Jagdeo noted that the government will branch into new avenues like cryptocurrency, provided that the appropriate safeguards could be found and instituted.
Moreover, the Vice President highlighted that the government is currently undertaking severalprojects which will aid in the digitization of Guyana.
Right now we are doing several projects.We are digitizing the government.
“If you come in at the airport now, you’d see we’re hoping our airport within the next few months would go paperless. We have started this year, we are mounting cameras right across the country.We have started doing that with software for facial recognition that would have a big impact on security.”
He added. “We’re issuing some secure documents now, a national ID for every person who lives here and our citizens that would give us the biometrics now to start to deepen the financial services and to broaden the range of instruments that would be available for people to improve payment systems.”