Derisking is taking its toll on the financial centres of the South Pacific. In the Cook Islands, private bank Capital Security Bank (CSB) was left without any correspondent relationships for days after international banks cut their lines. "We couldn't pay any money out for a week," says CSB managing director David Steens. In Samoa, the country's huge remittance flows, amounting to 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), have been knocked sideways by Australian and New Zealand banks closing down the accounts of money transfer agents. "It will end up with people carrying cash by hand and so defeat the whole purpose [of derisking]," says Samoa's central bank governor, Maiava Atalina Ainuu-Enari.
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