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

Appendix 1: Recollections of Previous Governors 283 At the domestic level the Bank formed a Council of Financial Regulators which met to discuss issues and trends in regulation. These meetings were mostly working lunch meetings and were to become very important following the collapse of a major regional insurance entity. Such sessions also informed our perspective when conducting briefings on the economy. Building skills in response to an increasingly diversified financial system Simultaneous with the increasing diversity of the financial systems at home, the Bank worked to enhance finance sector skills and its interaction with the international financial community. Research on capital markets was encouraged and several staff members were certified as Chartered Financial Analysts and Associates of the Institute of Bankers. The improvement in the skillsets of staff made them more competitive and some left the Bank to take up other opportunities. We comforted ourselves with the certainty that they enhanced the name and reputation of the Bank and of Barbados wherever they went. In helping to build financial skills in the community, the Bank housed the offices of the local Institute of Bankers on its premises and collaborated with the Institute and the University of the West Indies on the design of the undergraduate and masters degree programmes in banking at the University’s Cave Hill School of Business. The Bank also helped to restructure the Caribbean Centre for Monetary Studies so that research on finance could be reflected in that institution’s work. The Bank’s stature in the area of research and finance grew during this period. The record of the Research Department has been generally impressive, but during my stewardship the late Dr. Roland Craigwell’s econometric work gained an international reputation. I was invited as Governor to contribute to various international committees, including the Centre for International Governance Innovation based in Ontario. It was there that I made direct contact with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who later delivered the 32nd Sir Winston Scott Memorial Lecture.