Fintech & payments regulation in Bahamas (2026)

The Central Bank of The Bahamas published a consolidated consultation paper proposing amendments to the Payment Systems Act 2012 and Payment Instruments (Oversight) Regulations 2017, including migrating money-transmission business oversight from the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act into the unified payments-services framework. Public comments were invited through 31 October 2025.

The Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act 2024, enacted on 29 July 2024, repealed the 2020 DARE Act and expanded regulated activities to 17 classes, including custody, staking, derivatives, and advisory services, while introducing the world's first statutory disclosure regime for client-asset staking and comprehensive stablecoin reserve requirements. It positions The Bahamas as the first jurisdiction to enact a post-FTX, full-spectrum digital-assets statute.

Governor John Rolle publicly stated that all licensed commercial banks would be required to offer Sand Dollar CBDC access to clients within a two-year window, marking a shift from voluntary participation to mandated distribution and intended to address persistently low consumer adoption.

Prompted partly by the FTX collapse, the Securities Commission of The Bahamas released the draft DARE Bill 2023, drafted with Hogan Lovells, expanding licensing categories, adding explicit stablecoin registration and reserve requirements (banning algorithmic stablecoins), and tightening custody and consumer-protection standards. The consultation closed 31 May 2023 and fed directly into the DARE Act 2024.

Following FTX's Chapter 11 filing on 11 November 2022, the Securities Commission of The Bahamas suspended FTX Digital Markets' registration, stripped its directors of authority, appointed a provisional liquidator, and on 12 November transferred approximately US $3.5 billion in digital assets into SCB-controlled wallets for safekeeping, the largest single regulatory enforcement action in the country's financial history and a major test of the DARE Act 2020 framework.

The DARE Act 2020, in force from 14 December 2020, made The Bahamas one of the first jurisdictions globally to enact a comprehensive statutory framework for virtual-asset service providers (VASPs), granting the Securities Commission licensing authority and requiring a physical presence in the country, it became the direct legal basis for supervising FTX Digital Markets and dozens of other digital-asset businesses.

The Central Bank of The Bahamas officially deployed the Sand Dollar across all islands on 20 October 2020, making The Bahamas the first country to put a CBDC into general circulation. The Sand Dollar is a digital equivalent of the Bahamian dollar, issued and regulated by the Central Bank, intended to improve financial inclusion across the archipelago and maintain payment resilience against natural disasters.

The new Central Bank of The Bahamas Act 2020, enacted alongside the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act 2020, replaced the 2000 Act, modernised the Central Bank's governance and resolution powers, and crucially included an explicit provision authorising the Central Bank to issue digital currency, providing the legal foundation for the Sand Dollar.

The Central Bank issued the Payment Instruments (Oversight) Regulations 2017 under the Payment Systems Act 2012, establishing the first formal licensing and prudential requirements for non-bank providers of electronic money and retail payment instruments. This created the regulatory pathway that enabled fintechs and eventually the Sand Dollar ecosystem to operate legally.

The Payment Systems Act 2012 gave the Central Bank of The Bahamas statutory authority to formulate national payment-system policy, require approval for any domestic payment system, oversee payment instruments (including electronic money), and establish the National Payments Committee. It remains the primary legislative anchor for all non-bank payment-service-provider regulation in the country.