Financial literacy programme should be implemented – FSC boss

Financial literacy programme should be implemented – FSC boss
Patrick Foster
Friday, August 29, 2008
Jamaica Observer – Kingston,Jamaica

Roper…Jamaica has begun to write its own chapter on unsavoury unregulated investment arrangements

George Roper, acting executive director of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), has advocated the implementation of a financial literacy programme to help educate Jamaicans about prudent investment practices.
According to Roper, Trinidad and Tobago uses the programme which is sanctioned by the Central Bank and starts at the formative high school level.

“They have seen the need.Jamaica needs to have one in a big way,” Roper remarked.

“We have heard stories of persons investing all their life savings in highly speculative unregistered investment schemes in recent times,” Roper said in reference to the numerous unregulated financial schemes collecting funds on the island.

He was speaking Tuesday at a Guardian Life pension seminar held at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston.
Roper urged persons to prepare for retirement but cautioned against investments in unregulated financial schemes saying that he hoped the seminar would help to emphasise the need for more careful planning in making investment for retirement savings.

“Jamaica has begun to write its own chapter on unsavoury unregulated investment arrangements, said Roper adding that many of the arrangements were “not above board and based on fabrication and lies”.

A collapse of the unregulated financial scheme Cash Plus and the arrest of its head, Carlos Hill, in April dealt a major blow to investors, who have been unable to collect their dividends and principal.

And investors in the foreign exchange trading scheme, Olint recently received a serious setback when assets of the company were frozen in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Earlier this month the FSC issued a Cease and Desist Order to another investment scheme, World Wise Partners, demanding an immediate cease in conducting securities business including soliciting and accepting monies from the public.

Roper told the seminar that the FSC did not have the exact number of persons who have “fallen prey” and lost funds to the unregulated financial entities.

“We just don’t have a handle on what that number is,” he declared.

“It is undoubtedly clear that those who suffered loss were not just simple minded-persons or those who we consider naïve,” Roper added.

He said that around the world, governments, including the goverment of Jamaica, have long recognised the dangers to the financial safety and livelihood of their citizens. As a result, said Roper, they have created remedies and put in place laws to help keep their societies safe from financial predators.