Curaçao and St. Maarten, a practical and guarded playbook for the financial sector

The Centrale Bank van Curaçao en St. Maarten has released a Financial Sector Strategic Review with Nyenrode Business University, a roadmap that explains where the financial sector stands, what risks matter, and how two small jurisdictions can move forward. The report outlines four pathways, maintain the current model with steady upgrades, build modern digital financial infrastructure, develop green finance and ESG capacity, and pursue regional wealth and pension innovation. At the launch, public and private stakeholders called for balance, keep the anchors that work, invest where change creates value, and deliver through joint effort.

Fix the foundations first

The review starts with the basics because structure decides whether strategy can work. It calls for staying compliant with international tax transparency standards, keeping AML and CFT rules credible, and improving public financial management, since budget discipline and clear procedures build trust. Administration should move to digital processes that cut processing time for licenses and approvals, and supervision should be consistent and visible. The paper also points to practical pilots in areas like blockchain and digital payments where they reduce cash use, lower costs, and can be supervised properly.

Human capital is treated as a binding constraint rather than a slogan. The sector needs more legal, compliance, data, and product skills than the current pipeline provides. The review recommends targeted immigration and work-permit rules for clearly defined shortage lists, paired with curricula that teach asset management, data analytics, and digital finance so that local teams can absorb and retain knowledge. Attraction and training should run together, since neither is enough on its own.

Data quality and timeliness are presented as a precondition for everything that follows. Better macro and micro data improves risk management and policy, and it also supports any promise made to investors, from ESG claims to pension solvency. If institutions can measure on time, they can prove performance and price risk fairly.

Four roads, written as roadmaps

The first pathway, business as usual, is about prudence with steady modernization. Keep the exchange rate stable, maintain conservative fiscal policies, refresh core systems, and push incremental improvements in KYC and risk practices. This approach avoids disruptive overreach while preventing drift.

The second pathway, digital financial infrastructure, focuses on lower costs and wider access. It proposes modern payment rails, a supervised fintech sandbox, shared cyber protocols across institutions, and early planning for post-quantum security. AI and machine learning belong in practical use cases such as smarter compliance, fraud detection, and operational efficiency. This path depends on the same talent plan described earlier, since specialists must build alongside local teams and transfer skills.

The third pathway, green finance and ESG leadership, positions the jurisdictions to raise and manage climate-aligned capital. The review suggests a small-island climate taxonomy that prevents greenwashing, stronger disclosure discipline, and instruments like ESG bonds or a climate reinsurance pool that match regional risk. This only works if compliance credibility is clear, because impact investors examine detail and timelines.

The fourth pathway, regional wealth preservation and pension innovation, treats savings as a long-term trust business. The report recommends better tools for solvency forecasting, diversified investment options for participants, and simple, tax-efficient products for diaspora and retirees. Gatekeeping for higher-risk niches, including digital assets, must be strong. Training for notaries and accountants should rise in step with product complexity so service quality is consistent.

How a hybrid can work

Stakeholders lean toward blends that keep the monetary anchor while adding digital rails, or that pair stability with ESG development. The first combination lowers unit costs, widens inclusion, and offers early operational wins. The second combination aims at climate-risk services that fit island realities and can attract new capital. Both depend on the same groundwork, credible supervision, faster and better data, and a reliable flow of skills into firms and regulators.

Execution that keeps momentum

Capacity and coordination matter more than a long list of ideas, so the review points to a delivery approach where public and private actors share a plan, milestones, and owners. A small cross-sector unit with authority to track progress and clear bottlenecks would reduce handoffs and delays. Immigration and work-permit adjustments should be narrow, fast, and linked to knowledge transfer, while universities and training providers update programs to match the skills that firms actually hire. Cybersecurity and data practices need visible benchmarks, shared protocols, routine audits, and a timetable for moving to stronger encryption over time. Reputation should follow controls, not the other way around, so rebranding efforts come after the guardrails are in place and tested.

A short list for the next year

Name the preferred hybrid and publish a one-year and three-year action matrix with owners, metrics, and dates. Start the digital backbone, payments modernization first, a supervised sandbox next, common cyber standards in parallel. Open a defined knowledge-migration channel for shortage skills, time-bound and tied to training local teams. Adopt a compact reporting protocol for banks, insurers, pensions, and funds, then publish simple dashboards that show progress. These early moves are visible to the market, they raise trust, and they clear the way for the larger projects that follow.

The review shifts the FSSR from broad aspiration to practical work. Protect credibility through compliance and data, digitize the basics that lower costs, grow skills through smart attraction and education, and select a careful hybrid that matches current strengths. Deliver a few early wins, measure them, and use that momentum to take the next steps. This is how Curaçao and St. Maarten can turn a strategy document into a functioning, future-ready financial system.

The Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) and Nyenrode Business University, presented the Financial Sector Strategic Review (FSSR) report during a symposium organized in Sint Maarten and in Curaçao last week. This landmark initiative is designed to enhance the resilience, adaptability, and sustainability of the monetary

union’s financial sector.

The symposium, which took place in Sint Maarten on October 21st and in Curaçao on October 24th, brought together key stakeholders from the government, the financial sector, academia, and the private sector. Professor Dr. André Nijhof from Nyenrode Business University presented the main findings of the independently conducted study, which combines data analysis, stakeholder interviews, and a benchmarking review of regional jurisdictions.

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