标签： Barbados

Ahead of Barbados’ 60th anniversary of independence, a senior government official is pushing to unlock the massive economic potential of the local beauty industry, framing it as an underutilized engine for inclusive entrepreneurship, job creation, and broad-based national growth. Marsha Caddle, who serves as both Member of Parliament for St Michael South Central and Minister of Economic Affairs and Planning, made the case for expanded beauty sector investment following the conclusion of the inaugural *Art of Her: The Beauty of South Central* contest, an event she organized at Solidarity House Saturday night.

Caddle explained that the local competition was designed first to spotlight untapped creative talent across her constituency, but also to draw national attention to a global industry that generates more than $700 billion in annual economic activity worldwide. She argued that the beauty sector holds particular promise for expanding economic opportunity for Barbadians, especially women seeking to build their own businesses. “As we head toward our 60th anniversary of independence, I feel like it’s time for us to start exploring other drivers of growth and drivers of growth that are ripe for investment and ownership by many more people so that more people can be a part of the prosperity of Barbados,” Caddle told Barbados TODAY in an interview after the event.

Beyond direct job and business creation, Caddle highlighted the outsized social impact of supporting women-led entrepreneurship in the sector. When women control their own income, she noted, those earnings consistently flow back into improving child health, family education, and broader community well-being, creating ripple effects that extend far beyond individual businesses. “We have to continue to invest in women’s capacities. We have to make sure that women are always controlling income because income controlled by women helps to contribute to the health and education of children and families,” she said.

Caddle’s long-term vision extends far beyond a single constituency contest: she hopes initiatives like *Art of Her* will lay the groundwork for the founding and expansion of hundreds of new women-owned beauty businesses across the country. To support that growth, the Mia Mottley administration is already rolling out broader reforms to improve Barbados’ overall business climate, as part of a national strategy to identify 25 to 50 high-growth companies that can drive more inclusive economic expansion. Caddle confirmed that beauty sector businesses are eligible to be among that targeted group of high-potential enterprises.

What makes the beauty sector particularly compelling, Caddle added, is its deep interconnectedness with other fast-growing creative industries in Barbados, opening up cross-sector growth opportunities that many other sectors cannot match. The industry already has natural synergies with Barbados’ expanding carnival sector, and can provide critical specialized skills to support the country’s emerging film and entertainment sectors.

Caddle pointed to the government’s ongoing plan to launch a national Barbados film festival, part of a broader push to grow the local film industry by attracting both local content creators and international production companies to film on the island. Local beauty professionals with specialized skills in makeup artistry, hairstyling, and other creative services would be positioned to support these productions, creating an entirely new stream of employment opportunities for local workers. “This is a sector that runs deep. It has potential for tremendous linkages to carnivals all over the world, to the film industry, to all the other parts of the creative sector. So I think that it is one that is worthwhile to invest in,” she said.

While identifying high-potential growth sectors like beauty is a key priority for the government, Caddle stressed that ongoing business environment reform is equally critical to unlocking long-term economic expansion. The current administration’s top priorities for reform include cutting red tape and reducing wait times for planning approvals, expanding access to affordable financial services for small and medium enterprises, and cultivating a more competitive national business landscape.

“Both government and the private sector have some work to do on strengthening and modernising what we do, and that is going to be a big focus of mine in the next months and years going forward,” Caddle said. She added that the government’s strategy balances targeted support for emerging high-potential sectors with broad economic reform, noting that intentional investment in sectors with clear existing demand and growth capacity is a core part of the country’s path to shared prosperity. “I think that part of it is to be able to invest in sectors where there’s clearly an interest and there’s clearly capacity for growth, which is what we’re doing with the beauty industry,” she said.

Against a global backdrop of rapid digital transformation in financial transactions, the Central Bank of Barbados has moved to calm public uncertainty around the future of physical cash, confirming on Monday that the island nation will not implement a mandatory shift to a fully cashless economy. Central Bank Governor Dr. Kevin Greenidge made the clarification during a press briefing addressing the launch of BiMPay, Barbados’ new nationwide instant digital payment system, which went live last Friday.

Greenidge emphasized that while cash will retain its status as legal tender and remain in permanent circulation, the growing adoption of convenient digital platforms like BiMPay is expected to trigger a gradual, organic decline in cash usage over time. He pointed to successful instant payment infrastructure rollouts across major global markets as a precedent, noting that systems such as Brazil’s Pix, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Thailand’s PromptPay all led to a natural reduction in cash reliance without government mandates forcing out physical currency.

“Where you have a convenient alternative, people naturally shift away from cash,” Greenidge explained. “Look at markets like China, India and Kenya — once scanning QR codes for payment becomes widespread, many merchants prefer digital transactions, and consumers opt for them out of convenience. Today, the average person carries debit cards, credit cards, digital wallets and a small amount of cash; people will naturally choose the option that works best for them, and many will decide cash is bulky and unnecessary, that shift just doesn’t need to be forced.”

In its first 48 hours of operation, the BiMPay platform processed roughly 20,000 transactions totaling nearly $8 million, marking a strong early uptake of the new infrastructure by Barbadian consumers and businesses.

Beyond addressing concerns about the future of cash, Greenidge also moved to dispel growing public fears that participating financial institutions would introduce new transaction fees for BiMPay use. The governor stressed that peer-to-peer and consumer-to-business transactions on the platform will remain permanently free, and any bank seeking to implement fees must first secure formal approval from the Central Bank, which he has no intention of granting for these transaction types.

“Central Bank remains the primary regulator for this payment system, and we have not stepped back from that role,” Greenidge said. “Person-to-person and person-to-business transactions on BiMPay will stay free, that policy is not changing, and no financial institution can alter that without our sign-off.”

Greenidge also highlighted the transformative potential of BiMPay for small and micro businesses across Barbados, noting that the platform removes cost barriers that have historically locked many small operators out of card-based digital payments. Traditional credit card processing requires expensive point-of-sale terminals that carry ongoing fees, putting that infrastructure out of reach for many small proprietors such as local rum shop owners. With BiMPay, any business can simply download the mobile app and generate a free QR code, allowing customers to scan and pay directly into the merchant’s bank account at no cost.

“This system saves small businesses money that they would otherwise spend on terminal fees, and it also lets them avoid missed sales from customers who don’t carry enough cash,” Greenidge added. “That accessibility is core to what we want this platform to deliver — inclusive growth that supports small operators across the country.”

Barbados’ first national instant payment infrastructure, BiMPay, has delivered a solid performance in its first 48 hours of public operation, Central Bank of Barbados Governor Dr. Kevin Greenidge confirmed in a Monday press briefing held at the bank’s Grand Salle. In the two days since the system went live over the weekend, it has processed more than 20,000 transactions totaling nearly $8 million, with a 99% success rate that puts early performance well above expectations for a newly launched fintech platform.

Despite the overall strong showing, Greenidge acknowledged that the rollout hit predictable early-stage “teething issues”, most notably widespread registration difficulties reported by hundreds of users on social media just hours after BiMPay launched Saturday. The governor explained that the overwhelming majority of registration blocks stemmed from an unforeseen interaction with Google’s spam protection systems. In the first hour after launch alone, the BiMPay app was downloaded more than 12,000 times, and a large share of those users registered with Gmail accounts. The sudden volume of verification emails sent from BiMPay’s domain triggered Google’s automated anti-spam defenses, which blocked all outgoing verification messages from the platform, leaving users unable to receive the access codes required to complete registration.

Greenidge noted that prior stress testing ahead of launch could not have predicted this specific outcome, as there was no way to anticipate that such a large majority of early registrants would use Gmail accounts or that Google’s security protocols would flag the verification traffic as malicious. Central Bank teams quickly contacted Google to resolve the issue, and the block was cleared within hours, allowing affected users to complete their registration. Greenidge added that most other early issues have either been fully resolved or are on track to be fixed imminently.

Of the less than 1% of total transactions that failed in the first two days, Greenidge attributed all problems to minor formatting errors, such as incorrect entry of account or branch numbers, rather than fundamental flaws in the BiMPay infrastructure. “This is an extremely strong success rate for a newly launched system,” Greenidge emphasized. “Nearly 99% of 20,000 transactions worth $8 million went through without a hitch, across all participating financial institutions. The system is working exactly as it was designed to.”

Another ongoing adjustment involves the process for retrieving BiMPay access tokens from users’ financial institutions. Currently, users must obtain a unique token from their bank to access BiMPay, either via text, email, or their existing online banking portal. Most participating institutions have opted to host token access through their existing banking apps, but not all have placed the BiMPay token link prominently on their homepage as required. The Central Bank has held multiple meetings with chief executives of participating institutions over the past two days to address this, and is working with all providers to add a clearly labeled “BiMPay Token” button or link to their homepage for easy access.

When pressed for details on the total development and launch cost of BiMPay, Greenidge declined to share a specific figure, but clarified that the project did not draw on taxpayer funds. As an operationally and financially independent institution, the Central Bank of Barbados funds the initiative through its own investment portfolio, rather than government allocations.

Greenidge framed BiMPay as a critical public good for the Barbadian economy, noting that no single domestic financial institution had the scale to develop and roll out a universal instant payment system on its own, given the country’s small size. The upgrade to the national payments infrastructure, he argued, will strengthen Barbados’ economic standing and position the country to capitalize on upcoming regional and domestic development opportunities.

Looking ahead to the second phase of BiMPay rollout, which will onboard additional financial institutions and government agencies including the National Insurance and Social Security Service (NISSS), the Central Bank has declined to set a firm launch date. Deputy Governor Michelle Doyle explained that rigorous standardization of payment data formatting across all new participating entities is a non-negotiable prerequisite for expansion. Without aligned data standards, Doyle noted, there is an increased risk of transaction failures that could undermine user trust in the system. The Central Bank will first complete detailed preparatory work with all prospective new partners to ensure full data standardization, and will only announce a launch date once onboarding preparations are fully complete. “We are prioritizing long-term functionality over a fast rollout,” Doyle explained, “to make sure the entire system works seamlessly for all users when we expand.”

Barbados’ push to expand its critical tourism economy is receiving a strong early response from job seekers, as a new government-led workforce development program has pulled in nearly 3,000 applicants in just three and a half months, according to the country’s Minister of Technical and Vocational Training.

The Barbados Hospitality Gateway Training Initiative (BHGTI), a state-backed program designed to close the growing labor gap in the island nation’s hospitality sector, was originally framed to train up to 5,000 new workers. The initiative comes as local hospitality leaders have repeatedly flagged growing difficulty sourcing qualified candidates to fill hundreds of open roles across the sector.

Nine new hotels are scheduled to open in Barbados in the near term, creating demand for an additional 4,000 trained hospitality workers, Minister Sandra Husbands confirmed in public comments. That looming labor shortfall is what has driven the government’s targeted dual focus: supporting construction of new hotels and residential tourism properties, while building a pipeline of trained workers ready to step into new roles once the properties open.

Husbands explained that the BHGTI is structured to be fully demand-driven, a design feature intended to ensure trainees exit the program with skills that align directly with open industry positions. To achieve this, the vocational training department partners closely with the Ministry of Labour to conduct regular labor market assessments that map unmet skill needs, and adjusts training curricula and cohort sizes accordingly. For example, if the market already has enough bellhops and has a shortage of professional chefs, the program will shift enrollment to prioritize culinary training over other roles.

“This flexible structure gives trainees near certainty that a job opportunity will be waiting for them once they complete their training,” Husbands said. The overarching goal of the program, she added, is to create a closed, supportive ecosystem that boosts employment rates and lifts earning potential for young Barbadians and working families across the island.

In response to the unexpected flood of applicant interest, the government has moved quickly to expand training capacity. The program was initially hosted at three existing vocational institutions, but those facilities did not have enough physical space to accommodate the volume of interested trainees. To resolve the gap, officials have partnered with the Ministry of Education Transformation to secure access to 10 additional public school facilities, allowing the program to scale up enrollment and meet the high demand from prospective workers.