By Hilbert Haar Digital banking is the future. No question about it, but where will this leave banking clients in St. Maarten? And where will it leave the traditional banks that are currently serving them? Complaints about the way local banks are treating their clients are nothing new. They make it unnecessary difficult, if not impossible for some potential clients to open an account, their customer service to existing clients leaves at times a lot to be desired and transferring money abroad is usually a major headache. And I am not even beginning about the money the banks are charging…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — The banking industry is in the middle of a digital revolution that will affect banking in never before seen ways. Policy Officer Farah de Haas and Information Risk Officer Marc Kross examined the banking landscape in a blog published by the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten. They describe the rise, the risks and the requirements of digital banking. What stands out in this blog is that its foremost focus is on technological aspects, while it completely ignores the human factor. How important that factor is may appear from the following examples. A client of a German…
Dear Editor, From internal leaks to prevent a CEO Job acquisition to an all-out cyber-attack which included a 1 million dollar price behind it for access to their data. Our country is facing yet another obstacle with this GEBE fiasco. For a short summary, GEBE closed its doors on March 17th 2022 up till June 6th 2022 proceeding a cyber-attack which hit about 55 servers and 168 workstations. The attack being said as self-inflicting due to the weak security GEBE possessed to protect their servers at that time. Losing most if not their entire system which includes debtor and creditor…
By Hilbert Haar The November 19, 2021, court ruling against Hushang Ansary, his daughter Nina and several others that orders them to repay insurance company ENNIA in excess of a billion guilders starts having an effect. Ansary has offered to abide by the ruling, but in the meantime his appeal against the ruling is taking place in Curacao. Nina Ansary has filed a lawsuit at the US District Court for the District of Columbia in an effort to protect her 15.9 percent share in her father’s company Parman. And now Abdallah Andraous, a former ENNIA-director, has joined the fight with…
PHILIPSBURG — Former ENNIA-director Abdallah Andraous has followed Nina Ansary’s example in an attempt to get away from paying 237.2 million guilders ($132.5 million) in damages to his former employer. Attorney Rutsel Martha files a notice of arbitration on behalf of Andraous. This notice calls on the bilateral investment treaty between Lebanon and The Netherlands to justify why the Kingdom is responsible for paying these damages. Andraous was born in Beirut but he has in the meantime obtained Dutch nationality. The treaty Martha refers to has been in place since March 1, 2004. It aims to protect mutual investments in…
By Hilbert Haar “A parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people,” the British journalist, businessman and essayist Walter Bagehot once wrote. True or false? When I look at the parliament in St. Maarten I am sorely tempted to agree with Bagehot. The question is whether the citizens who voted their fellow (wo)men into a cozy and overpaid seat in parliament are getting the right bang for their buck. Let me say beforehand that this does not apply to all of our parliamentarians. There are a few rather refreshing exemptions. Our parliament is supposed…
By Hilbert Haar Julius Vischjager was, I am not exaggerating, a phenomenon. Between 1977 and 2009 he produced 528 editions of The Daily Invisible, the only handwritten newspaper in the world. Vischjager was its editor-in-chief who provided all of its contents. Did this make Vischjager a journalist? A publisher? The fact is that he had access to the weekly press conferences of Dutch prime ministers. And he had a privilege: he was always given the opportunity to pose the last question. Dismissing Vischjager as the village idiot would be a mistake. His creativity alone set him apart from any crowd.…
Grand rising people of Sint Maarten. My name is Joseph Peterson, I’m a candidate on the URSM party list. I am here to talk to you about The Dangers of Selling Your Vote. You are a loyal follower of your political party, however you need to ask yourself the question: are you better off now, then how you were before you voted for them, if you are not satisfied with your situation right now, then it’s time for you to make a change. I have lived practically my entire life on Sint Maarten. I’ve seen all the different political parties…
WILLEMSTAD — Dorothy Pietersz-Janga is no longer minister of Public Health, Nature and Environment in Curacao. She made her position available at the request of Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas in a letter dated March 8 to Governor Lucille George-Wout. Click here for related article in the Antilliaans Dagblad>>> Pietersz-Janga created a political controversy after she attempted to intervene in a lawsuit by asking the liquidators of BZV – the bureau for health insurances – to withdraw claims against former SZV-managers Alli Abdala and Milton Yarzagaray. That attempt failed and the parliament filed a motion of disapproval against her. The court…
PHILIPSBURG — Drastic reforms to the Kingdom Charter should be the only relevant topic for the next Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation (Ipko), Independent Mp Grisha Heyliger-Marten stated in a press release: “There are stacks and stacks of documentation pointing out that the Kingdom Charter does not and cannot work, and is not in compliance with international law.” During the most recent IPKO-meeting in Curacao, MP Heyliger-Marten expressed her dissatisfaction with the fact that “the discussion about changing the Kingdom Charter seems to be avoided.” All governments within the kingdom complain about the Charter’s structure and its deficient articles, but nobody seems…
