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Trinidad and Tobago moves toward an Instant Payment System.

Faster transactions, less cash, and a major shift in how we do business. But is the country truly ready for real-time digital payments?

We discuss the opportunities, the risks, cybersecurity concerns and what it could mean for you.

Joining us in studio is Former Planning Minister Bhoe Tewarie and Senior Information Security and Digital Policy Practitioner Shiva Bissessar.
Transcript
00:16A very good evening and welcome to Beyond the Headlines.
00:18I'm Urvashi Tawari Rupnarein.
00:21Tonight we examine Trinidad and Tobago's move towards an instant payment system,
00:26a digital shift that promises faster transactions, greater financial inclusion,
00:31and a modernized payment landscape.
00:34But while the technology could transform how citizens and businesses move money,
00:39questions remain about cybersecurity, digital readiness, regulation, accessibility,
00:45and whether the country's infrastructure is truly prepared for such a major transition.
00:50What are the opportunities and what are the risks?
00:53And what could this mean for the average citizen, small business, and the wider economy?
00:59Joining us tonight are former Planning and Economy Minister, Dr. Botiwari,
01:04and Senior Information Security and Digital Policy Practitioner, Shiva Bissasa.
01:10Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your time and your expertise.
01:14Thank you for having us.
01:15So, Shiva, I start with you.
01:17For viewers who are unfamiliar with the concept, what exactly is an instant payment system and how does it work?
01:25So, instant payments has been around for some while now.
01:29UPI is just one example.
01:31For example, in Brazil, you have the PIC system.
01:35Essentially, what India did is they built, over a period of time, a trustworthy system.
01:44So, they started with identity management.
01:46The identity of persons was captured.
01:49And then they laid on top of that storage of data.
01:53And then the final service would have been instant payments, leveraging the identity of the persons, the population within India.
02:03And what has resulted is a mass adoption and usage of this technology to transfer funds between persons,
02:12peer-to-peer transactions.
02:14It will, the money is being moved from one bank account to the other bank account.
02:20So, peer-to-peer or peer-to-merchant payments, it's been truly revolutionary in India with a massive adoption rate.
02:29And this is something that digital payment systems would love to see globally, where you get that high uptake of
02:37usage and adoption.
02:40Yes.
02:41So, Dr. Tiwari, I do not walk around with cash, hardly ever.
02:46So, sometimes I may want some bananas or something at a fruit store.
02:50It's so convenient to go and just, I guess it's like on your phone, Shiva, you just tap to pay
02:56or there's some transaction via the phone.
02:58From an economic and development perspective, how significant would this introduction be to TNT?
03:04Well, it would be very, very significant because it would save time for everybody.
03:11It will increase convenience for everybody.
03:16It will basically make transactions faster and more secure.
03:24But more than that, it will make it less costly.
03:32Because what happens in those transactions is that you cut off, let's say, the credit card cost, which is usually
03:43about 2% or 3%.
03:44And most times the cost of the transaction is either zero or negligible.
03:52So, it's a cost savings besides the additional issue of efficiency.
03:58But I want to say something, which is that, you know, the payments thing and the money transfers and the
04:08ability to operate in the financial system is one thing.
04:11But I think we need to be alert to the fact that we have a real opportunity in Trinidad and
04:21Tobago to do something quite significant here that involves identity,
04:29that involves finance, that involves the movement of information, that involves governance of those things,
04:37that involves preparing ourselves to be better in charge of AI applications and more what you might call quantum ready.
04:49That is, let's say, the big thing that is coming in terms of world preparedness for this technological world.
04:57And the world is moving very fast and developing countries.
05:01If we do not do these things, if we do not do these things, are going to be kind of
05:05left behind.
05:07And more than that is going to affect our competitiveness.
05:10If you are not in the digital commercial system, your market is limited by geography.
05:18But the digital system opens up the geography and gives you a world system.
05:23It opens up what you might call the radius of opportunity.
05:29And secondly, it might take you five months to organize a business.
05:36But with a digital system, it might take you five minutes, ten minutes.
05:40And those kinds of things, you see, those are the advances that could make a decisive difference to us.
05:47And I would not like us to miss this opportunity.
05:53And in my thinking, we have a window of two years.
05:58And the reason I say that is that it is likely that we're going to have something of an energy
06:06windfall here in 2028.
06:09Some people are predicting earlier, but let's say it's 2028.
06:13That gives us two years to be able to get all of these things together and get them right to
06:19optimize that.
06:20And secondly, the world is headed wherever it's headed in terms of space, in terms of technology, in terms of
06:28AI.
06:29But we need to be ready for that world that is being created.
06:33To move with that.
06:34Now, you said two years, conservatively.
06:36Shifa, can this be done in two years?
06:38And what are some of the challenges?
06:39Because we know that this system had been tried and tested in some jurisdictions, even in the region.
06:45And there was some hesitance.
06:46Right.
06:48So digital payment systems, on the whole, strived or tried to attain that usage and uptake factor.
06:58And why is it that one system may achieve that and another may not?
07:04This is what we find in pilots and commercial deployments globally.
07:10India has been very successful with UPI.
07:12But there was some hesitance there initially?
07:15I'm not.
07:16No, I wouldn't say that because there's a high adoption rate and persons use it universally across there.
07:24What you need to have for successful deployment is trust.
07:29There are concerns with respect to digital literacy, with respect to security, with respect to privacy,
07:35which exists with the current digital infrastructure that we have right now.
07:40So there's the financial inclusion survey from 2023, which pointed out some of these caveats that people must take into
07:49consideration when deploying a system like this.
07:52So it's not as simple as you deploy technology and people will adopt it.
07:56And people have to be convinced that this is of benefit to them.
08:02There must be a value proposition that is communicated to the population to adopt it.
08:07And they must trust the system to be able to use it.
08:12Dr. Diwari, I remember you were contributing to UE's mid-term budget discussion.
08:18And you did say that there was a misconception that the elderly persons or the older persons in society would
08:24not want to adopt this method.
08:28But that's not true.
08:30No.
08:31I mean, the experience of other countries tells us that older people may initially resist.
08:38But when they realize they don't have to go in lines anymore, when they realize that they don't have to
08:46deal with the problem of mobility anymore,
08:49which can be a problem, whether it's transportation or physical mobility,
08:53when they realize those things and that they could do it just from their phone, the adaptation is rapid.
09:01You know, and we have about 13% of the population, which is over 65, which is not a lot
09:08really in numbers or percentage.
09:11We could do that.
09:12But we also have 400,000 people who are 25 years and under.
09:17And these are what you call, I mean, the digital generation.
09:21I mean, it'll take nothing for them to adapt.
09:24And other people can be trained where they work.
09:26They can train in systems, in the system.
09:31They can, I mean, if we, we have, we are negotiating, not negotiating, we have actually negotiated.
09:40And India has created the conditions for the handover of what they call a digital stack.
09:46And this deals with the question of identity.
09:49This deals with the question of money payments and transfers.
09:52And this deals with the question of movement of information.
09:57And it also deals with the issue of commerce and what you call it, governance.
10:03All of these things can be ruled out simultaneously, coherently, cohesively.
10:10What we do not have, and I think we must admit it, we do not have the capacity in Trinidad
10:19and Tobago to be able to do this well at a quick pace.
10:24We need help.
10:25We need guidance.
10:26And I think we must ask for it, but we must ask for it not to send people to train
10:33abroad.
10:34We must ask for it to be done here with the people here on the projects that we are doing
10:40here so that what we are learning can be integrated in what we are doing.
10:48And then what happens then is that we exert a certain amount of mastery over our own systems.
10:57Is this, as Dr. Tiwari said, the solution from India, is this digital stack?
11:02Will it be compatible?
11:04Who really runs it?
11:05Does government run it?
11:06Do they take a nominal fee?
11:08What?
11:09Well, these are important questions, and as Dr. Tiwari alluded to, governance is a key part of this.
11:15So who are going to be the stakeholders involved?
11:17Who is driving this project?
11:19What is going to be the operational agreement between the drivers of the project and the operators of the project?
11:26Who are these stakeholders?
11:28Are they the banks?
11:29Is it the government?
11:30How do they interact and work with each other?
11:33Program management is another area that we need to look at.
11:36How do you execute a project like this that is going to be a pretty significant effort involved?
11:43And as Dr. Tiwari said, you know, there is some, you know, maybe we don't have the capacity, but I
11:51believe we do have the capacity.
11:53We do have small businesses that are eager to work in this area and work in this field.
11:58So I think we can layer the proper program management to manage this project once we have all the stakeholders
12:07aligned.
12:08So governance program management, I would say another issue key here would be security and then the trust with the
12:16factor and the privacy factor as well.
12:18We need to have security and privacy in mind.
12:21How is this data going to be handled?
12:23How are we going to onboard customers?
12:25What is the identity solution for this?
12:28And how do we rule all of this out?
12:31Now, the banks do have experience in being custodians of this data and so on.
12:37But if banks are involved, we could assume that fees are involved.
12:41Do you think government being involved, there would be that trust?
12:45Who does it in India?
12:46Well, the thing about the Indian system is that it's based on open AI.
12:53And what that means is that you are not controlled, let's say, by a Google or by a Huawei.
13:01Okay.
13:02It's an open system that allows for interface by any sector or any other system or any other structure within
13:12that open system.
13:14And there is something, the technical view might be much deeper than what I'm saying, but there's the notion of
13:24interoperability in which, because it's an open system, it doesn't matter what you really have.
13:31But once you connect and it's interoperable, you are part of the whole system as well.
13:39And I think that that is what we must strive for.
13:42The significance of that is that it is highly decentralized.
13:47So it is harder to hack in a single space, central space.
13:55Secondly, decentralization puts the power in the hands of the individual with the individual identity and not in the hands
14:05of government, which is a problem that people are untrusting about.
14:09They don't want government knowing all their business, spying on them and using their information.
14:14It is also because, I mean, if you do it right and you do it with that notion of decentralization
14:23and individual identity and interoperability,
14:26you also don't want a bank consortium to control financial systems.
14:33You want them to be part of the financial system.
14:37So whether you pay a grocery store or you pay a bank, this transaction is just as easy and the
14:51cost is the same, which is zero.
14:53So we have to take a quick break.
14:56When we return, how could an instant payment system reshape commerce, banking and everyday life in TNT?
15:02Are we moving quickly enough or are we moving too quickly?
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16:46And welcome back to Beyond the Headlines.
16:49During the break, we had the most interesting discussion.
16:52Dr. Tuwari, can you revisit that example?
16:55No, I was using the example of how cost is reduced by transaction.
17:06And the origin of a person really doesn't matter, or the type of business doesn't matter.
17:14So, let's say a person travels from Chicago, they come from a holiday, to a holiday, for a holiday in
17:20Trinidad.
17:21They go and they buy a pop-up from a vendor, let's say in the market in Tunapuna.
17:26They simply use their phone, make the transaction, the vendor gets his money, there's no cost to anybody.
17:35But where's the saving?
17:37The vendor saves 3% on the credit card if she would have paid or he would have paid with
17:43her credit card.
17:43And the machine that you have to use to put the credit card in, the vendor doesn't have to have
17:49it anymore.
17:50And that might cost a few hundred dollars.
17:54So, I mean, it really changes the whole structure of transaction.
18:00And what it means is that every transaction now is tracked, so that, I mean, you have that kind of
18:07information that you never had before.
18:10But we would be sort of bridging the gap and bringing, because you go to the market, you could only
18:15pay with cash.
18:15No one there has a machine, you can't pay with card.
18:18So, by using this UPI, we're bridging the gap, we're bringing more people onto the online system.
18:25But, Shiva, the bigger question is, who really manages it and where do the fees go?
18:31That comes back to the governance aspect that we need.
18:35I personally don't know.
18:36But I would assume that, you know, they're thinking about how to operationally manage the system, how to govern the
18:44system,
18:45who are the stakeholders involved and who's responsible for what.
18:50I would say to add to that example, you probably alarm a lot of bankers there with that cutting off
18:56fees.
18:57No, that's true.
18:58Exactly.
18:58But there's money to be made in other ways.
19:02So, whereas that 3% goes, you know, maybe that now, the intermediation of fees now spreads with other stakeholders.
19:10So, but to get to that point, we still have to get to the point of mass adoption.
19:16How do we convince a population that this is something that they need to have, that they should practice, that
19:23their behaviors need to change around spending?
19:26That's a difficult conversation because people are very, their habits towards spending is very sticky.
19:33So, if they are accustomed to doing something in a certain way, they will continue to do that way unless
19:38you show them some additional benefit.
19:41So, the technology is one part.
19:44Governance is another part.
19:46Security and trust is another part.
19:48But the adoption, we definitely need to have something in place that will guarantee adoption and usage.
19:56Time is upon us, but I do need to ask, what about security?
19:59How secure are these transactions?
20:01Because we're seeing already there's so much online fraud, credit card fraud.
20:05Well, as you know, we do some work with deepfakes.
20:08And when you talk about the identity part of this, there is the potential for something like that to happen.
20:14You may potentially onboard someone who has a deepfake applied within their application process.
20:21So, we need to look at all of these issues holistically and come up with methods by which we ensure
20:28that we do not onboard persons who are not who they say they are.
20:34And that's just one small aspect.
20:35We need to look at the various aspects of security that would surround a system like this.
20:40Dr. Tiwari, are your closing thoughts?
20:42No.
20:43Well, on the security question, you know, whatever you do in this world, security is going to be an issue
20:48because there is always going to be the dark side of whatever business or whatever opportunities you create in the
20:55world.
20:56So, I think that that issue of cybersecurity is something that has to become more and more sophisticated.
21:03And because you are always dealing with criminal mind innovation, which is not to be underestimated, and at the same
21:14time, you have to always keep ahead.
21:16It's the only way.
21:17I don't think there is another way unless you catch somebody actually committed a crime and then you can deal
21:23with it in a certain way.
21:24Ten seconds, closing thoughts.
21:27Well, I think we should be, I think we should take India's offer, optimize it, speed it up, do it
21:38in a very integrated way.
21:39I would say, I would say, do it in partnership with them and maybe other partners who can be helpful.
21:46And I think where Trinidad wants to be, Trinidad and Tobago wants to be, is to be leading with AI,
21:53to be quantum ready, and to be perhaps well positioned to be the leader of these technologies in the CAIP.
22:04Closing thoughts, 10 seconds.
22:05We just need to plan it properly.
22:07We need to make sure we look at all of the areas that needs to be considered when ruling out
22:13such a digital payment system.
22:15We've merely scratched the surface.
22:17Thank you all for viewing this edition of Beyond the Headlines, and of course, thank you to our guests for
22:22joining us.
22:22Tisha, it's off to you.
22:24And it's...
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