Panama: Financiële diensten
From Handelswijzer Midden-Amerika
Features
Panama's financial services sector comprises the financial system (banks, finance companies and loan banks), insurance companies and stock market traders. The sector accounted for 7.5 per cent of the GDP in 2006.
Panama's specific commitments on financial services are contained in WTO document GATS/SC/124 of 1 October 1997. As it acceded to the WTO in 1997, Panama did not take part in the extended negotiations on these services within the GATS framework. It bound without limitations cross-border supply (mode 1), consumption abroad (mode 2) and commercial presence (mode 3) for loans and acceptance of all types of bank deposits; financial leasing with option to purchase (exclusively movable goods); banking guarantees and commitments; all payment and money transmission services (excluding local transmission services); trading for own account or for account of customers; money market instruments and foreign exchange; derivative products; transferable securities; participation in issues of all kinds of securities (not including agents); money broking; asset management; and advisory services, inter alia. For insurance, on the other hand, the concessions are more limited.
For reinsurance and retrocession services, Panama bound modes of supply 1, 2 and 3 without limitations on national treatment, together with modes 2 and 3 for market access, including in its schedule of specific commitments a limitation on fire insurance, for which insurance companies may not cede premiums for reinsurance abroad in an amount exceeding 50 per cent of the total premiums for risks covered in Panama. Panama did not bind cross-border supply, consumption abroad or the presence of natural persons for life, accident and health insurance or for non-life insurance, while commercial presence was bound without restrictions. In the special case of transportation insurance, there are no restrictions on cross-border supply with respect to goods exported from Panama from the moment they are outside Panamanian territory.
The Government is currently in the final stages of implementing the programme to enhance the transparency and integrity of Panama's financial system, with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), designed to strengthen the institutions responsible for supervision and control in order to prevent and investigate money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In this context, the Government took a number of measures that led to Panama being removed from the list of non-cooperative countries and territories in the combat against money laundering by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). A report on the achievements in this area is published annually. In 2002, Panama became a reporting country at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Bron: Organization of American State's Foreign Trade Information System (SICE)
