Both Sides of The Coin: The Story of The Central Bank of Barbados 1972-2017

156 business and financial services (IBFS) sector mainly by way of articles, advertisements and interviews in leading business magazines and special issues of newspapers and other publications. Material was also distributed during high-level international gatherings like the annual meeting of the IDB. With the passage of time, doubts were raised about whether this approach delivered the best value for money; the advertisements were very expensive and there was evidence that they did not always reach the intended target market. Accordingly, from around 2008 the Bank started to de-emphasise this programme and arranged for staff members to make presentations on aspects of international banking when other agencies were conducting promotional road shows. 86 During the first decade of the new century, the Bank availed itself of other opportunities to promote and defend the interest of the IBFS sector. It became a member of the Joint Policy Working Group, the new coordinating and advisory body for the sector. This enabled the Bank to influence policy-making and to advise on many concerns raised by prospective investors. In addition, during 2010 the Bank started to agitate for more transparency in the governance of global financial oversight agencies and for the voice of the small international financial centres to be heard. As a result it was selected in 2011 to represent Barbados on the Financial Stability Board’s new Regional Consultative Committee for the Americas. Three other initiatives with a focus on IBFS issues started in 2011 - a newsletter, an internal review committee and an annual visit to Canada by a team from the Bank. 87 This group, led by Governor Worrell, met with regulatory and financial officials, representatives of commercial banks and other interested parties to discuss a wide range of topics touching on the IBFS sector. An important component of the Bank’s efforts to promote the IBFS sector and to highlight financial sector issues in general was outreach and public education. Staff from the Bank Supervision Department attended and presented papers at meetings and conferences of regional regulatory bodies. The Bank, often in collaboration with institutions such as the US Federal Reserve and CEMLA, held regional training courses for Bank examiners and hosted the Annual Conference