Bahamas must balance imported specialists with homegrown talent to grow financial services

# What happened

At the Nassau Conference on financial services, LaNiska McSweeney of EY argued The Bahamas should strike a practical balance between importing specialised financial-services talent and developing its own professionals. She said the country does not have enough depth of expertise to support every product it might want to develop, but bringing experienced international professionals into the market can speed knowledge transfer and expand networks that generate business.

# Why it matters

Financial services in The Bahamas is known for wealth management and private banking, and new activity around private trust companies (PTCs) and insurance is emerging. McSweeney warned that without clarity about which products the country wants to grow, policymakers cannot determine what specialised roles — actuaries, underwriters, or other licensed professionals — are required, nor whether those roles exist locally.

# The main gaps to fix

• Measurement gap: There is no comprehensive dataset showing how many licensed specialists currently operate in The Bahamas or where Bahamians working overseas are located.

• Talent pipeline: While current local talent exists, McSweeney asked what happens when the present generation retires or moves on.

# Practical steps suggested

• Map demand first: Decide which financial products have the best growth potential, then identify the specific specialist roles needed to support them.

• Build a diaspora registry: Create a dataset to locate Bahamians working abroad and assess how to leverage their expertise and international contacts.

• Use targeted immigration of specialists: Allow qualified international professionals to enter the market to transfer skills and bring client referrals, while structuring their participation to ensure training and retention of Bahamian staff.

• Monitor and license: Determine how many licensed actuaries and underwriters are in-country and whether licensing or training programmes need expansion.

# Counterarguments and concerns addressed

# Bottom line

The Bahamas can pursue both objectives: recruit targeted international expertise to accelerate growth and deliberately build local capacity so Bahamians occupy increasingly specialised roles. The immediate first steps are to agree on priority products and to collect accurate data on existing domestic and diaspora talent to inform recruitment, training, and retention policies.