– moveable properties bill among those in pipeline
By Jarryl Bryan
Government has several pieces of financial legislation it plans to introduce, including laws that will aim to cut down on large sums of money being carried, establish deposit insurance and make changes to existing legislation.
This was announced by Finance Minister Winston Jordan, during a recent press conference. One such law Government intends to introduce will bring into effect a new National Payment System, allowing for more electronic payments to be made.
The Guyana Association of Securities Companies and Intermediaries is one organisation that plays a critical role in Guyana’s securities market
This bill, he noted, is expected to be introduced to the National Assembly on April 26.
“We’re hoping at the same time that other legislation from the Ministry of Finance will go. These include deposit insurance that we said in our budget speech. We’ll be requiring banks to take out deposit insurance, so that if they go under you can get back at least some of your money.
“There’ll be changes to the Bank of Guyana Act and the Financial Institutions Act to accommodate these changes here. The regulations to the insurance law that was brought in in 2016 will be made effective this month. I’ve already signed off on them, so they have to be printed in the gazette. The new, substantive legislation for insurance will then come into force.”
According to Jordan, new securities legislation is actually completed and presently sitting in the Attorney General’s chambers. But while Jordan admitted it has taken a back seat for now, he noted that the objective is to get it into the National Assembly before it goes into recess.
“Moveable properties legislation is also on the cards. We already have the credit
A number of bills are slated to be introduced to the National Assembly
information legislation (of 2016). This whole suite of legislation is intended to deepen the financial sector and create widespread intermediation,” the Minister said.
“With things like the Anti-Money Laundering Act, there’s some level of disintermediation that can take place, people getting frustrated over opening new accounts and getting frustrated and so on.”
But with these plans, Jordan acknowledged the need to balance financial inclusion with keeping Guyana within the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements.
Only recently, a United States Department of State report was released that listed Guyana, among many other countries, as “major money laundering jurisdictions in 2017”.
The US International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) Volume Two of March 2018 had declared that there was a lack of strong interagency cooperation among AML and drug-fighting agencies, adding that these departments did not have adequate human resources and the necessary training for complete effectiveness.
It had called for more training, education, and resources to improve the fight against money laundering. In its 2018 overview of Guyana, the INCSR posited that “narcotics trafficking and Government corruption are the primary sources of laundered funds”.
Moveable property
Earlier this year, Business Minister Dominic Gaskin had announced that they would be embarking on a Secure Transaction Regime project in collaboration with the Legal Affairs Ministry.
According to Gaskin, the project will allow for easier access to financing, using movable property as collateral. He noted that the Ministries were still working on having the legislation passed some time this year.
He had explained that once the legislation was approved, persons would then be able to use movable properties such as fridges, televisions, and stereo sets as collateral for credit when accessing finance.
Securities
Guyana currently has a Securities Industry Act of 1998, which establishes the Guyana Securities Council. Intended to regulate the trading of stocks in publicly traded companies, the Act provides for securities brokers and dealers to be registered, among other things.
The AML/CFT Act of 2009 also bestows powers on the Council as a supervisory authority with oversight over certain operational aspects of reporting entities such as banks.
Last year, Jordan had announced that the Act would be updated to address the establishment of a Central Securities Depository that would record transfers of securities’ ownership. It had also been reported that the Council, to be renamed the Securities Commission, would receive additional powers.
