Minister Loustau-Lalanne ends familiarisation visits at FSA |08 July 2019

Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning Minister Maurice Loustau-Lalanne has thanked and commended staff of the Financial Services Authority for the good work they are doing in the financial jurisdiction, thus creating more wealth for their company and for the economy of Seychelles.

Minister Loustau-Lalanne made this comment after a familiarisation visit on Friday to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) headquarters at the International Trade Zone (ITZ), Bois De Rose and part of its operation situated in the Sunshine Commercial Building, Providence.

The visit to FSA was Minister Loustau-Lalanne’s last in a series of familiarisation visits to organisations under his portfolio.

The aim of Friday’s visit was for Minister Loustau-Lalanne to see how work was getting on and also to interact with the management and staff on their duties in terms of successes and challenges. FSA has 133 staff.

“I was impressed with the reception I received at the headquarters. When I got out of my car, the welcome was overwhelming. It’s never happened to me before. So it gave me a first impression that the FSA is working effectively as a team because that’s what they demonstrated within the first few seconds when I arrived at the headquarters. And I had that same feeling when going through the whole company,” Minister Loustau-Lalanne said, noting that this was working very much in their favour in terms of making them more effective, be able to understand the business more and be able to adapt to changing circumstances as they work in a competitive environment.

Since the financial services sector is the third pillar of the Seychelles economy, Minister Loustau-Lalanne said the Ministry of Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning is there to swiftly help FSA staff so that they can react to important changes in the international environment to help grow the Seychelles economy as the target is between 3.5% and 4% annually year on year.

After being welcomed by FSA chief executive, Dr Steve Fanny, and other senior staff, Minister Loustau-Lalanne accompanied by two senior staff from his ministry was led on a tour of the headquarters which houses the administration department, the registry department, the ITZ department, part of the accounts section and the office of the CEO.

From the ITZ, Minister Loustau-Lalanne and his delegation were taken to visit the other operational side of FSA based at Providence. This includes the human resource department, the capital market and collective investment scheme supervision department, the insurance and pension department, the gambling supervision department, the policy and legal judiciary supervision, the information system department and part of the accounts section.

The main challenges the staff talked to Minister Loustau-Lalanne about were staffing and retention, lack of working space, delay in the operations as the FSA offices are located far apart in two different locations and parking space especially for staff working at Providence as they note they have to park mostly in the mud at all times.

Minister Loustau-Lalanne noted that together with the FSA management, the Ministry of Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning is looking in the possibility for FSA to have its own building to house all of its operations.

According to the director of registry, Lisa Lautoy, 212,435 international business companies (IBCs) are registered with FSA. 56,600 IBCs are in good standing leaving the rest – 155,835 – as non-compliant as they are not paying their renewal fees.

Ms Lautoy said that FSA is working closely with corporate service providers to ensure that the non-compliant IBCs stick to their registration regulations or rather face the penalties which could include being struck off as a registered company in Seychelles.

Although there is a high number of non-compliant IBCs, Dr Fanny said the FSA is one among the top three contributors of dividends to the government.

He further said that with new products being introduced, FSA is working to situate itself as the second pillar of the economy in the years to come.

Dr Fanny said Seychelles’ financial jurisdiction is way ahead in providing better products as compared to many international jurisdictions.

He noted that FSA is well known internationally and is not on any black list whatsoever, thus striving to retain the confidence of investors through maintaining a robust and modern regulatory framework, and maintaining an excellent reputation as a premier international business centre.

He highlighted the fact that investors listed on the Singaporean jurisdiction came all the way to interact and to visit the FSA stall in a road show in Asia recently is testimony of progress made in this domain.

Dr Fanny thanked Minister Loustau-Lalanne for the visit and also for supporting FSA.

FSA is an autonomous regulatory body responsible for the non-bank financial services in Seychelles. Established under the Financial Services Authority Act, 2013, it is responsible to license, regulate, enforce regulatory and compliance requirements, monitor and supervise the conduct of business in the non-bank financial services sector in Seychelles. These regulated activities are fiduciary services, capital market & collective investment schemes, insurance and gambling. The Authority is also responsible for the registration of international business companies, foundations, limited partnership and international trust in Seychelles.

The accompanying photos show Minister Loustau-Lalanne touring the FSA facilities and interacting with staff.