business@tribunemedia.net
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2023
$5.76
$5.76
Digital payments ‘not as robust’ despite 30% rise By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE BAHAMIAN use of digital payments is “not as robust as we’d like to see” yet, one provider asserted yesterday, even though the volume of transactions it processed increased by 30 percent in 2022. Jeffrey Beckles, Island Pay’s managing director, told Tribune Business that an estimated 26 percent of consumers and merchants are regularly using the technology for financial transactions compared to industry expectations that 40 percent would have fully “embraced” it by now. Although adoption rates are “getting better”, he argued that both the Government and industry need to close the public education “gap” on digital payments, and Bahamians bring the ease with which they conduct electronic transactions while travelling abroad back home. Describing digital payments as “a revolution that is here to stay”, and “something to be embraced and not feared”, Mr Beckles told this newspaper that adoption would receive a significant boost if the Government
starts to pay for good and services using the Sand Dollar. This, he argued, would foster business and consumer confidence in the Central Bank-backed digital currency, with the Island Pay chief also voicing optimism that increased use of electronic transactions will position Bahamians and the country’s economy to “thrive” in an increasingly globalised environment. “It’s evolving at a steady pace, albeit not at the rate we would want, but it’s steady. It’s getting better,” Mr Beckles replied, when asked about the pace of digital payments adoption in The Bahamas. “It’s doing better than it was, but is not as robust as we’d like to see it. But we’re making steady progress..... “Given how sophisticated the Bahamian consumer is, and how savvy merchants are, we would have thought that by now from a national perspective we would have seen at least 40 percent of consumers and merchants embracing it.” The Island Pay chief said the provider currently has 30,000 clients with electronic wallets, and 58,000 total
SEE PAGE B5
• Bahamas below industry’s 40% adoption expectation • Provider: ‘Why not do at home what you do travelling’ • Govt’s frequent Sand Dollar use to be ‘game changer’
JEFFREY BECKLES
Construction work permits ‘shifting in wrong direction’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE “balance” between Bahamian and foreign labour in the construction industry has “started to shift in the wrong direction”, a prominent contractor is arguing, while calling for a halt to all general labour work permits. Leonard Sands, the Bahamian Contractors Association’s (BCA) president, told Tribune Business in a recent interview it had become too easy for the sector to obtain work permits even for low-level, unskilled jobs and this was placing Bahamian workers at a disadvantage.
LEONARD SANDS In particular, he argued that it was “unfair” for Bahamians to compete against expatriate workers for “general labour” positions on construction sites that require no specialist
SEE PAGE B7
Hotel union eyes industrial agreement ‘red letter day’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE HOTEL union’s president yesterday said it will be a “red letter day” for its several thousand members when their now ten-year wait for a new industrial agreement with the main employer body is ended. Darrin Woods, the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union’s (BHCAWU) chief, told Tribune Business that he hopes to close a deal with the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association, which represents Atlantis in particular,
DARRIN WOODS by mid-second quarter this year. The union and its members have been without an industrial agreement since the last one expired in January 2013, and Mr Woods said that apart from increased
SEE PAGE B7
$5.46
$5.92
Bahamas ‘big part of the FTX puzzle’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FTX’s Bahamian operation was yesterday branded “a big piece of the puzzle that needs to get resolved” as its provisional liquidators successfully obtained US legal recognition for their ongoing investigations. Attorneys representing Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo, Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves, sought to dispel previous suggestions that FTX Digital Markets was a relatively insignificant and “under sized” part of the collapsed crypto exchange’s empire when they appeared before the Delaware Bankruptcy Court. Bankruptcy judge, John Dorsey, signed the order granting the Bahamian trio Chapter 15 status, which will enable them to conduct investigations and pursue assets belonging to the local subsidiary with the full backing of the US legal system. He did so after their US legal representative, Chris Shore of
BRIAN SIMMS KC the White & Case law firm, provided an update on the Bahamian provisional liquidators’ work to-date. In doing so, Mr Shore also revealed that the Bahamian Supreme Court has ratified the co-operation agreement thrashed out between the provisional liquidators and John Ray, the Chapter 11-appointed head of 134 FTX-related entities that are currently under the Delaware court’s supervision. Besides giving the Bahamian trio the go-ahead to consummate the co-operation deal, it also emerged that the Supreme Court on Tuesday recognised one of Mr Ray’s team as the representative of those Chapter
SEE PAGE B4