New E-Report: Exploring Trinidad’s Climate for F&A Outsourcing

Trinidad and Tobago has begun to emerge as a small, but formidable outsourcing destination despite having a relatively brief history in global services, finds Nearshore Americas’ newest E-Report, which includes results from a recently conducted independent survey.

Thanks to its proximity to North America, the Caribbean country has attracted a number of large, global financial services corporations. Although still in its infancy, early results are demonstrating a viable economic model that can attract BPO businesses, noted the paper titled “Trinidad & Tobago Rediscovered.”

To support the development of an outsourcing climate, the government is offering incentives in the form of tax breaks and end-to-end facilitation. Low energy cost and an educated English-speaking workforce are the main drivers, the paper pointed out.

VIEW THE NEW TRINIDAD E-REPORT HERE 

Given the study, Trinidad and Tobago provides an increasingly strong climate for F&A BPO. Several large international financial institutions, such as Scotiabank, have already seized on these advantages. Scotiabank is operating a shared services center, creating about 400 new jobs, while KPO firm Quatrro Global Services and the Caribbean Electronic Payments Systems have announced plans to launch BPO operations.

The report highlights both advantages and risk factors. It says the Caribbean country needs to step up security and cut bureaucratic red tape. But the government seems to have resolved most of the issues raised by investors.  It has, for example, reduced the time required to launch a business from 43 days to just three.

The twin island nation, located just seven miles north of South America, is one of the prosperous Caribbean countries, largely due to its oil resources.  Trinidad and Tobago produces about 4.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and 82,000 barrels of oil per day.

The country, according to the e-book, is suitable for the financial services industry due, in large part, to its education system and talent pool. Since the early 2000s, the government has invested nearly $2 billion USD in tertiary (post-secondary) education resulting in a population of highly educated workers.

In recent years, the Telecommunications Company of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT), Columbus Communications and Digicel have been engaged in developing a modern broadband infrastructure to support the needs of growth and attracting data-centric organizations to the country.