STRATEGIC FOCUS FOR 2026-2030
I. Strengthen Transparency & Governance
- Strengthen public trust through clearer, more timely communication on policy decisions, economic developments, and regulatory matters.
- Deepen public understanding of the Bank’s mandate, roles, and impact on everyday life.
- Streamline publication timelines and close gaps in economic and supervisory data dissemination.
- Improve transparency and service standards in regulated activities under financial sector supervision and exchange control; and strengthen public consultation frameworks impacting regulatory developments and reforms.
- Strengthen institutional governance and oversight; in alignment with the Central Bank of The Bahamas Act, 2020 and best international practices, further enhancing Board effectiveness, management committee structures, human resources governance, procurement transparency, financial management controls, and oversight of dormant funds.
- Strengthen risk management frameworks within the Bank’s operations regarding anti-money laundering and related financial crime; further enhance technology and third-party risk governance, and improve information governance in line with evolving data security and governance standards.
II. Improve Economic & Financial Sector Resilience
- Continue to build capacity and policy frameworks to maintain monetary and exchange rate stability, through improved data quality, and enhanced surveillance and forecasting.
- Improve the coverage and quality of economic data and statistics to inform policy decisions.
- Maintain sustainable approaches to the liberalisation of exchange control policies, while safeguarding foreign reserve adequacy.
- Deepen efforts to modernise, advance and support public debt management operations.
- Advance payment system modernisation, including fast payments, digital currency adoption and strengthened financial market infrastructures.
- Advance financial inclusion and financial literacy initiatives; and strengthen consumer financial protection frameworks.
- Continue the implementation of the Basel III risk-based supervisory framework and strengthen prudential supervision of banks and non-bank institutions.
- Continue to strengthen risk-based supervision and compliance to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing; and uplift jurisdictional effectiveness against international tax transparency standards.
- Strengthen the financial stability monitoring and crisis management framework, through enhanced regulatory cooperation.
- Strengthen the financial sector cyber resilience framework.
III. Enhance Operational Excellence & People Empowerment
- Clarify, publish and monitor the Central Bank’s service level standards for stakeholders and clients.
- Streamline public-facing services through greater use of digital tools and simplified processes.
- Strengthen institutional governance around project management processes, and collaboration.
- Improve operations resilience around business continuity, cybersecurity, and information security and governance.
- Strengthen human resources frameworks, including performance management, training, compensation benchmarking, and staff engagement.
- Strengthen internal systems impacting financial operations and dormant funds administration, and enhance cyber-related financial safeguards.
- Strengthen the enterprise risk management culture, through further incentivised accountability structures and enhanced staff training.
- Further advance enterprise risk management maturity in alignment with best international practices and central banking standards.
- Expand the use of technology to improve information management, and continuously improve the Bank’s cyber resilience and information security posture.
IV. Promote Innovation
- Advance the implementation of a Regulatory Sandbox Framework; and establish a Central Bank-sponsored framework, inclusive of open banking rules and standards to support fintech-driven private sector innovations.
- Scope and pursue further reforms to boost financial inclusion, including a national eKYC registry.
- Develop further resilience in the domestic payments’ infrastructure, including offline functionality; and leverage the central bank digital currency (CBDC) and fast payments to expand the reach and interoperability of the cash dispensing infrastructure, particularly in the Family Islands.
- Further modernise the enterprise IT systems and strengthen technology governance.
- Guided by information governance, information security and data protection standards, pursue responsible adoption of AI, cloud computing, and other innovations to boost operations efficiency, internal capacity and productivity.
- Foster an enterprise-level culture of creativity, experimentation, and adaptive problem-solving.
- Leverage technology to enhance efficiency, responsiveness, and regulatory effectiveness.
