For this special edition of the newsletter we have personally contacted all our members for their latest updates to bring you up to date information of Curaçao’s International Financial Sector during these last six months. We trust that you will enjoy this edition and welcome all suggestions. As to CIFA’s accomplishments, we can look back at this year’s big event earlier in March, The STEP Conference: Curaçao “The New Midshore Reality”.

This conference was organized by CIFA, CIFC and STEP Curaçao. The event took place at the Santa Barbara Resort and welcomed top speakers like Niall Ferguson and Jan Willem de Jager, local professionals and government officials, as well as international ones from The Netherlands and the Americas. The event was attended by 300 participants, local and as well as international. This event was a great example of close collaboration in the sector of by its members, as well as other organizations’ like IFG, CINEX, IBA, KVK, DBB, CBCS and Government.

We hope to have an even bigger success next year with another international conference in Curaçao.The CIFA Board has been very active during the first half of the year and members of the Board took a more active role in participating in different meetings with the Embassies of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Ambassador of the Netherlands in Cuba and the Ambassador of the Netherlands in Colombia, while they were visiting Curaçao, to discuss ways in which they can best assist the nternational
Financial Sector of Curaçao to develop the respective markets. Various trade missions, meetings with parliament and meetings with Ministers were conducted in order to facilitate the various requests of the sector brought forward by CIFA’s members. CIFA’s Board is also in constant contact with all stakeholders and the Government to help push forward relevant legislations for the sector, while our members contribute significantly by preparing the content or reviewing it in order to facilitate
the process.

All in all we can look back at a successful first half of 2015, and we are very thankful to our members who put in countless of hours in reviewing and drafting documents for various pieces of legislation as well as for FATCA and AIFMD amongst others.