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by pltm
(PLTM) - The House of Assembly resumes today, August 14 in the Committee stage, where legislators are currently considering amendments to the Finance and Money Services Act. The amendments being considered are among other things aimed at enabling the use of mobile money in the Territory.
The Bill seeks to modify the definition of financing to include amongst other things the provision to pay advances. The amendment also seeks to expand the definition of money services business beyond money transmission services that is presently available in the Territory to include the transmission of monetary value including electronic money, mobile money and payment; and other alternative methods of money payment transmission.
During the debate of the Bill on July 25 a number of members of the House of Assembly spoke favorably about the amendments, which is expected to foster the implementation of mobile business.
Mover of the Bill, Premier and Minister for Finance, Dr. the Hon. D. Orlando Smith explained that this is the first amending of the Finance and Money Services Act since its 2009 enactment.
The Premier said, “giving the current evolvement of financing and money services business a full review of the Act has now been carried out resulting in the Bill before the House.”
Minister for Health and Social Development, Hon. Ronnie Skelton spoke favorably of the amendments. He told the House, “We must stay ahead of the curve if we want to be in the financial services businesses…Money as we know it is going to be a thing of the past and now we have the bitcoin and all the other things that are affecting us that we don’t know yet; and the quicker we embrace some of this stuff the better off we are going to be.”
The Minister for Health said that there are a lot of questions about how the mobile money businesses are going to be regulated and how abuse of the system will be prevented.
“How you are going to go about ensuring that the ethically challenged so to speak do not use it for the wrong reasons. I am sure that there is this system that we can build that the ethically challenged can’t use for their purpose,” Hon. Skelton said.
In further expressing optimism about the mobile money industry that the amendment might spur Hon. Skelton said, “It is important for us to understand the generation of children, my grandchildren your grandchildren, the way they are going to see the world – they are going to see money but it is not going to be the way we are going to see it. My grandfather saw money –pounds, shilling and pence; we saw the US dollar as we started using the US dollar. We started using credit cards. We are seeing all sorts of instruments used for transacting Businesses.”
“I suspect and I am quite aware that in the next ten years what we see today… the future generation will not see it, because it would be a more efficient kind of system and these things that we use will be prehistoric,” he added.
Minister for Communications and Works, Hon. Mark Vanterpool announced that many countries around the world have already embraced, and is far ahead in the area of alternative money. He told the House that already people are making orders and paying by cellphones in Africa.
Hon. Vanterpool mentioned businesses in the US such as Starbucks mobile payment. He told the House, “That is the way the world is now going…It is now a common thing.”
“In years from now you probably wouldn’t see any cash being used anywhere. So I am glad to see we are moving in the right direction here – changing our laws to adapt to these things...,” Hon. Vanterpool added.
Second District Representative, Hon. Melvin Mitch Turnbull asked that efforts be made to ensure that the senior citizens of the Territory are kept up to speed with the technological advances.
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