More than $1 billion in reinsurance payments are set for flow to the Bahamas, of which residents will receive 50%, according to reports from The Tribune.
Source: Gonzalo Gaudenzi/AP Photo
The publication quoted John Rolle, Governor of the Central Bank of the Bahamas, who disclosed the figure to attendees at the recent Bahamas Business Outlook conference.
Rolle noted that the more than $1 billion in reinsurance settlements would be the highest amount ever received by the nation, and added that a healthy level of receipts would be used to help non-residents finance their rebuilding.
Addressing the Central Bank’s role in helping commercial banks and financial institutions to access foreign currency, Rolle said that its capacity to stimulate recovery would depend on whether external reserves are able to finance imports of the necessary goods and services.
Access to foreign exchange during shocks was derived from three sources, he explained, including reinsurance inflows from the international market, government borrowing for reconstruction, and the accumulation of foreign reserves in non-crisis periods.
Roughly 1,200 wallets are now operational in Exuma as part of Project Sand Dollar, the launch of the digital Bahamian dollar, with another 2,000 participants seeking to join.
Rolle said the initiative “has the potential to deliver on a longer-term resilient and deployable framework for financial access.”
“Payments services connectivity can be swiftly restored in a wireless fashion after disasters, avoiding the cash shipment and cash handling frustrations,” he noted. “If necessary, aid could be dispensed electronically, and families allowed to recapture their personal dignity, with flexibility to prioritise the elements of personal needs that they must satisfy post-disaster.
Some seven payments service providers are participating in rolling out the Sand Dollar app, ranging from money transfer agents to at least one commercial bank and other payment service providers.
Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas over September 1st to 3rd, 2019 as a Category 5 storm with sustained wind speeds of 185 mph, making it the strongest storm to have ever struck the nation.
Economic damages are currently estimated at around $3.4 billion, and there were at least 70 deaths linked to the event, with a further 282 people left missing.
Governor Rolle previously warned that it was “a given” that insurance premium rates will rise this year in response to the scale of Dorian’s devastation, with global reinsurers also likely to seek extra compensation for the losses and increased disaster risk in the Caribbean.
