During five years of research into the optimum role and function of international financial centres in the 21st century, the development of the Independent Financial Centre of the Americas has defined new standards of effective operation. The Centre marries regional opportunity with international scale by establishing innovative, purpose built physical and technological architecture at the heart of a region emerging into the global financial mainstream. Independent of the historical and geographical ties that constrain the development of traditional financial
centres, the launch of Independent Financial Centre of the Americas marks a new era of maturity, dynamism – and competitiveness – in the international financial centre industry.
In this inevitably more crowded environment, financial centre offers are finding niches through which they seek to secure advantage. To thrive at global scale the Independent Financial Centre of the Americas will not only equal or better the range and quality of financial services available, but also effectively communicate a position that differentiates it from competitors.
The Centre operates on a platform enabling a complete range of globally focused financial services. Its ambition to become a fully-fledged international financial centre is founded on proven global market expertise in its strategic perspective and operational direction, offering seamless opportunities to leverage high levels of Latin American regional experience.
World-wide scope is an easy claim to make, but in the case of the Independent Financial Centre of the Americas, it is supported by a genuinely unique configuration of underlying criteria upon which we believe our success will be established.
The Centre is privately run. This means that it is completely aligned to the business aims of its tenants and will operate with maximum efficiency to ensure their achievement. All of the benefits of globally experienced management, reliability, responsiveness and consistency that are inherent in a private organization will enhance the commercial effectiveness of the Centre.
The Centre is positively and independently regulated. Regulation remains a defining concern for the international finance industry, and while it is critical to ensure the conduct of fair and legal business at every step, it is equally important that the process does not unduly hamper efficient commercial practice. With the establishment of an entirely new regulatory regime that is independent of politics and of the Centre itself, we can guarantee transactional probity to global standards of compliance. At the same time, we are working within a newly conceived regulatory framework that is built specifically to take account of the issues specifically surrounding the emergence of new global financial marketplaces. Finally, we have built clearing and settlement
technologies that map closely to the regulatory procedures, ensuring that absolute compliance with anti-money laundering and terrorist finance provisions does not impact transactional efficiency.
The Centre is purpose built. Enabled by both its private ownership and its independence, the fact that the Centre has been built, from scratch, to service the modern global financial industry has also crucially informed the infrastructure we are creating. To ensure best-in-class performance across a full range of business activities our state-of-the-art communications and clearance and settlement combine with our deployment of the best people at every level to drive down both the
costs and risks of doing global business from our regional hub.
Taken together, we believe these criteria not only position us as a uniquely distinct service offering in our region and in the world, but that they will also generate a consistently successful operating environment for the profitable conduct of business.