Digital provider calls for Bahamas CSME sign-on

By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A DIGITAL payments provider yesterday argued that the Bahamas should join the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) to break down barriers facing local firms seeking to expand into the region.

Nicholas Rees, Kanoo’s chairman, told Tribune Business that The Bahamas not being a signatory to the CSME increases the cost for local firms wishing to do business in other Caribbean jurisdictions.

“We expect to be in multiple Caribbean islands. We are advanced in a number of Caribbean territories. We don’t want to name any territories as yet because we have provisional licenses in two additional territories, and we’re finalizing an acquisition in a further territory,” he said. Mr Rees said difficulties encountered in expanding to other Caribbean jurisdictions include a lack of “tax treaties”, which are “essential” among CARICOM countries. “The Bahamas does not fully benefit from those tax treaties that the other CARICOM members

• Merchant services to help drive increase

• Net income near $22m if ‘one-offs’ stripped

• CEO: ‘Core deposits’ increased by $20m

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

FIDELITY Bank (Bahamas) is targeting $25m in net profits for 2023 despite failing to achieve the same goal last year, its top executive revealed yesterday.

Gowon Bowe, the BISX-listed lender’s chief executive, told Tribune Business he expected the bank’s buoyant merchant services business to drive increased returns for the full year after it was largely responsible for producing a 65 percent increase in fee and commission income to $6.145m in 2022.

And, speaking after Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) unveiled its unaudited financials for the year to end-December 2022, he added that the $20.116m net income was likely to be adjusted upwards as a result of lower loan loss provisions than those shown yesterday.

Explaining that the institution had taken a “conservative” approach to provisioning as it has yet to complete the associated modelling, Mr Bowe said this - combined with the stripping out of some $1.75m in one-off merchant acquisition and marketing costs - would take Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) close to being on par with 2022’s $22.17m profits.

Asked about the bank’s bottom line ambitions for 2023, he told this newspaper: “We are projecting that $25m again. We feel we are