TATT explores digital financing services

This was revealed by TATT’s deputy chair- man Dr Kim Mallalieu on Thursday.

She was speaking at the opening of a twoday workshop titled Exploring Innovation in Transactions and Financing in the Caribbean II, at the Parliament Building, Port-of-Spain.

Mallalieu said after the first workshop was held, it generated considerable interest in exploring how transactions and financing can be improved in the region.

“A level of interest shown at that workshop led to the hosting of this follow-on event,” Mallalieu said.

“While electronic payment has been growing in popularity around the world, slowly but surely, Caribbean entrepreneurs, the traditional business community, regulators, governments, government agencies, and other regional leaders are recognising the benefits of more richly and more deeply leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) in finance.

“The first phase of the initiative will facilitate free WiFi at specific public locations such as hospitals, libraries and transportation hubs.

As services become increasingly affordable and accessible, demand for value added services such as mobile money would increase.” She said since the last workshop, tangible strides have been made towards the reality of digital financial services in the region, yet the success in digital finance is inextricably linked to a number of enabling factors including, but not limited to, a healthy vibrant telecommunication sector with considerable investment in infrastructure, as well as high penetration rates and affordable access.

“In the case of TT, the telecommunication and broadcasting sectors grew from $3.3 billion in revenue in 2006 to an estimated $5.51 billion in 2016.

During this period mobile and internet services experienced double-digit growth.

Mobile voice subscriptions rose from 1.5 million subscribers in 2006 to 2.2 million in 2016.

The demand for fixed internet services increased from 82,000 in 2006 to an estimated 255,000 in 2016.” She noted the increase in mobile internet subscriptions was 10,000 in 2007 to 707,000 in 2016 with approximately 63 percent of mobile service subscriptions using mobile internet.