Expert outlines STEPs to success in finance markets

ALERT, WATCHFUL  AND PREPARED.These three words, said worldwide chairman of the Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners (STEP), Michael Young, described where the industry needed to be at  in wake of imminent change in the international financial markets.“We need to be alert, we need to be watchful and, like good Boy Scouts everywhere, we need to be prepared,” he said.Young said it was no longer a question of whether change was coming because it was already in progress.“There is a gathering momentum towards change in the regulation of the financial world,” he said.“We may not be able to hold back the tide of change; indeed, there are elements of change which  I think we should actually welcome, but we can  still influence the outcome,” he added.Speaking during the opening ceremony of STEP’s Caribbean Conference at Hilton Barbados yesterday, Young said that in some quarters, mainly in Europe, trusts were under attack from politicians and others, on the basis that they were shrouded in secrecy and used for illegal ventures.He said these accusations were predicated on a lack of understanding of what trusts did or, in some cases, on prejudice.Meanwhile, co-chairman of STEP International Committee and head of the Private Capital Group of the London office of legal firm Stikeman Elliott, Richard Hay, revealed that while only two countries – Barbados and United States Virgin Islands – were on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s  (OECD) “white list” (a list of countries the organisation deemed compliant with its standards on tax transparency) in 2009,  by May this year, that  list had grown to about  15 countries.