On March 21st, 2025, the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) and CaribCoin hosted a webinar ‘Complementary Currencies Webinar ‘Implementing A Digital Catalyst for Caribbean Prosperity‘
The Caribbean region faces severe structural financial challenges, including limited financial connectivity, high transaction costs together with low transaction speed, and dependency on foreign correspondent banks and the US dollar for cross-border transfers. These hurdles restrict regional trade, in particular the development of CARICOM’s Vision 25 by 2025 food and nutrition security initiative and slow the progress of the digital CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Complementary currencies offer a solution to these barriers by providing additional liquidity, facilitating seamless cross-border transactions, and supporting economic resilience. Furthermore, they may be designed in a manner to foster regional development by appropriately adjusting their core parameters. Carib$, a Caribbean digital, asset-backed complementary currency, has proven its functionality in 2024 several times and at the same time has generated significant interest amongst multilaterals and within the agricultural sector.
HOST
Rodney Taylor – Secretary-General, Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU)
PRESENTERS
Gianlucca Dettori – Chairman, Sardex Pay
Dr. Jan Schröder – Co-Founder and Chief System Architect, Carib$
Dr. Wendell Samuel – Assistant Secretary-General, CARICOM
PANEL – The Road to Integration
Hon. Saboto Cesar – Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labour, St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Dr. Patrick Antoine – Chief Executive Officer, CARICOM Private Sector Organisation
John Outridge – Chief Executive Officer. The Trinidad and Tobago Financial Centre
Moderator: Michelle Marius – ICT Pulse
(Video lightly edited for clarity – EN/ES/FR Captions)
YOUTUBE | TRANSCRIPT | SUMMARY | ARCHIVE | PERMALINK
TWITTER #CaribDollar @TheCTUnion @CaribDollar| MASTODON | BLUESKY | INSTA
