Polack Post: Caribbean Banks – Cayman Declares War
Peter Polack
By Peter Polack
The new Premier of the Cayman Islands has declared war on the banks operating there by ordering a massive increase in their fees now, and in the future. He also gave an indication of quasi nationalization in the form of forced employment of locals and that government would look for additional ways to influence bank decisions and fee payments.
Career bureaucrats rarely understand the hard process to innovate, create, profit, pay bills, year after year and keep the ship afloat especially for bad loans. They understand a check every month, nothing more. The last thing the private sector needs is a Monday morning quarterback who has created zero but is an overnight expert.
A first year economics student understands that Increased costs always trickle down to the consumer in prices or fees or interest. Cayman should brace themselves for higher charges to do business in the future.
These are archaic decisions in a new world with free movement in the Caribbean and elsewhere. When governments seek to interfere with the management of private businesses such as a bank by a host of ways such as mini nationalization there is a word for it, socialism.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
The government leader and his accomplices in cabinet have even adopted a militaristic tone in their future plans more familiar from autocratic societies like Cuba or Venezuela. Government decisions have now become salvoes and the bureaucratic work of compliance personnel have been described as soldiers on the front line by the rookie Premier.
That kind of talk mirrors the socialist speeches of those in Jamaica, Grenada and Cuba in the seventies that denied any intention to bring those countries into the far left orbit before doing exactly that.
So what is the plan ?
Squeeze the banks until they no longer wish to do business in the Cayman Islands or plough the field to make them attractive takeover targets like what happened to the only Caymanian owned Cayman National Bank, bought by Trinidadians.
Peer review or deeper consideration of these rashly composed decisions would reveal that at least two name brand bank chains have pulled out of the Eastern Caribbean and elsewhere before being swallowed up by the Trinidadians in at least one case.
No need to to ogle, just keep on moving until you wake up in a socialist state that makes present day corruption look petty.
Let the politicians fixate on increasing the budget for their chauffeurs by $200,000 or the DUI avoidance scheme. At least two conscientious members of the Cabinet declined to participate in that run at the trough by refusing cars and chauffeurs. Those are the type of individuals that will be detained if their voices become too loud in a socialist state. Truth the first casualty.
This comes from one of the most expensive political leaderships in the Caribbean and world.
Like a lot of political party promoters, the chairman of the Premier’s party having failed to be elected, now appears to be drifting into never never land. The former accountant opposed the vehicle and chauffeur policy, promised to give back government vehicles as a start and declared that the new party would drive their own cars to work. This was for a slimmer government, not more employees and bigger budgets.
Lies and broken promises.
Like an extract from some manual on socialism and nationalization without calling it that, the government of the Cayman Islands have declared war on banks. Ask any of the Jamaicans who fled the socialist experiment in Jamaica to the Cayman Islands.
Be warned, Donald Trump does not like leftist governments in the Caribbean, but he loves Trinidad. If they complain about Cayman, it will be the end.
The grass is always greener where the rhetoric is missing.
Notes
https://www.caymancompass.com/2025/11/22/premier-higher-bank-licence-fees-just-the-opening-salvo
https://www.rfhl.com/rfhl-acquire-scotiabank-9-countries
https://www.caymancompass.com/2025/11/24/cabinet-ministers-get-more-funding-for-chauffeurs
Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.
His views are his own.
