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a32 local
Thursday 2 July 2020

Central Bank of Aruba:
Under the current unprecedented stress levels caused by COVID-19:

Resilience of the financial sector in Aruba remains strong

ORANJESTAD — Today the Centrale ity and to protect the international measures were taken (24 more tio and prudential liquidity ratio,
Bank van Aruba (CBA) publishes its reserves. These measures were than in 2018). An administrative amounting to 30.9 percent and
FINANCIAL SECTOR SUPERVISION taken with a view to ensure the fine was imposed in 36 cases, for- 29.3 percent, respectively, at end-
REPORT 2019. smooth functioning of the credit mal directives were issued to rem- 2019 are sufficient to absorb signifi-
market under stressed conditions. edy the identified deficiencies in 4 cant external shocks.
The CBA is the sole supervisory au- Although at the time of writing this cases, and a penalty charge order
thority of the financial sector in report, there is no indication that was imposed in 5 cases. As in previous years, during 2019
Aruba. The Financial Sector Super- the financial sector will not be able the CBA continued its efforts to
vision Report is a legally mandated to withstand the financial shock The CBA applies a risk-based ap- strengthen the regulatory frame-
report submitted by the CBA to the arising from the COVID-19 pan- proach to execute its supervisory work by issuing new or revised
Minister of Finance before July 1st demic, much uncertainty still exists tasks. Under this approach, it allo- policy rules and guidelines. An
of each year. In this report, the CBA on the overall impact of this pan- cates the largest part of its super- overview of the most significant
provides an overview of the main demic on the economy of Aruba visory resources to the institutions developments in this area can be
activities it carried out and the prin- as well as its financial sector. The and areas with the highest risk found in chapter 3 of the report.
cipal policy decisions it took during stress test conducted on the com- profile (e.g., the loan and invest- Without prejudice to the afore-
the subject year to implement the mercial banking sector in connec- ment portfolio, governance, risk mentioned, the CBA finds it essen-
supervisory ordinances, including tion with the COVID-19 pandemic management, and compliance). tial – once again – to highlight the
the laws to prevent and combat shows that the impact may be very This approach, together with the importance of passing the revised
money laundering and terrorist fi- significant; however, the ample CBA’s strict enforcement policy draft State Ordinance on the Pre-
nancing. This report also describes capital and liquidity buffers pro- and its ongoing commitment to vention and Combating of Money
the main initiatives taken by the vide the banks with ample room to comply with the highest standards Laundering and Terrorist Financ-
CBA to further strengthen the legis- weather this unprecedented eco- and best practices in the area of ing (AML/CFT State Ordinance) as
lative and regulatory framework. In nomic storm. financial sector regulation and su- quickly as possible. This also in light
addition to an outline of the recent pervision, has been conducive to of the upcoming evaluation by the
developments in the international As in previous years, in 2019 the maintaining a very solid and repu- Caribbean Financial Action Task
supervisory landscape, the report CBA’s core supervisory activities table financial sector in Aruba. Force (CFATF) of the effectiveness
discusses the main developments consisted of periodic onsite exami- of Aruba’s AML/CFT framework.
in the domestic financial sector. nations conducted at the super- The financial sector supervision re- Due to Covid-19 the CFATF evalua-
vised institutions to assess key risks port also shows clearly that in 2019, tion has been postponed and now
Although this 2019 report focuses and compliance with the prevail- Aruba’s financial sector remained most probably will take place early
mainly on the developments that ing laws and regulations, and on- robust, profitable, and highly resil- next year.
took place in 2019, it was inevita- going offsite surveillance. Offsite ient. The current Covid-19 induced
ble also to reflect on the possible surveillance includes reviewing economic crisis once again clearly To conclude, the strict and consis-
impact of the COVID-19 pandem- the mandatory periodic financial demonstrates the need to have tent enforcement of the superviso-
ic on the financial sector. Similar to and regulatory reports filed by the ample capital and liquidity buf- ry and AML/CFT laws and regula-
other countries, the Government supervised institutions at the CBA fers in place to weather unprec- tions over the years has contribut-
of Aruba took drastic measures to and holding bilateral meetings edented storms. The aggregated ed to maintaining a stable, reputa-
mitigate, as much as possible, an with them. prudential ratios of the supervised ble, and healthy financial system in
outbreak of the virus on the island, sectors stayed within sound rang- Aruba. In addition, the CBA works
including the closing of its borders. Where deemed necessary, the es. The nonperforming loan ratio on an ongoing basis to uphold the
To soften the economic impact of CBA applies the instruments avail- of the commercial banking sec- highest international standards in
the COVID-19 virus on the econo- able to it to effectively enforce tor continued its decreasing path, the areas of financial sector super-
my of Aruba as well as the financial compliance with the prevailing from 3.9 percent at the end of vision and AML/CFT.
sector, the CBA quickly took mea- laws and regulations. If the CBA 2018 to 3.0 percent at end-2019.
sures in the monetary, prudential, identifies serious breaches of the Furthermore, the yearly stress tests The FINANCIAL SECTOR SUPERVI-
and foreign exchange domains to supervisory laws and regulations, it conducted on the domestic bank- SION REPORT 2019 is available on
amplify the commercial banks’ li- may consider taking formal mea- ing sector demonstrate that this the website of the CBA www.cba-
quidity and loss-absorption capac- sures. In 2019, a total of 45 formal sector’s risk-weighted capital ra- ruba.org as of today.q
Slavery Abolition Day Dutch colonies

ORANJESTAD — Keti Koti is territories, colonies, and ished in all Dutch colonies.
an annual celebration on countries, both former and The emphasis in the histori-
1 July that marks Emanci- current, of the Dutch Em- ography has been on the
pation Day in Suriname. pire and the Kingdom of Dutch participation in the
The day is also known as the Netherlands that are transatlantic slave trade. In
Maspasi or Prisiri Maspasi, located in the Lesser Antil- total, Dutch slave traders
meaning “Emancipation” les archipelago of the Ca- shipped around 600,000
or “Emancipation Festival”. ribbean Sea. Currently the enslaved Africans to the
Keti Koti marks the date Dutch Caribbean consists New World, which is 5–6
when slavery was abol- of the constituent coun- percent of the total of the
ished in Suriname and the tries of Aruba, Curaçao transatlantic slave trade.
Dutch Antilles in 1863. and Sint Maarten; and the The Dutch were among
special municipalities of the last to abolish slavery.
The Dutch Caribbean Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and After Denmark in 1803,
(historically known as the Saba. Britain in 1834 and France sands who worked on the West Indies were finally
Dutch West Indies) are the In 1863 slavery was abol- in 1848, the many thou- plantations in the Dutch released.q