Sabrina Gordon, Business Reporter

Colin Bullock, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, regulating entity for securities, pension and the insurance industry has confirmed negotiations with former employee Janice Holness to head the organisation.

"The process has not been completed, interviews have been held and Janice Holness has been selected as the preferred candidate, but no appointment has been made," Bullock told Wednesday Business on Friday in a telephone interview.

"We are now negotiating a contract, so it's still a work in progress and, of course, it has to be approved by the Ministry of Finance," he said.

Bullock said Holness, an attorney-at-law, is currently working in the United States. Prior to that she was employed to the commission, serving in a senior capacity in the investigation and enforcement division.

According to Bullock, Holness left the commission in 2010.

Former executive director of the FSC, Rohan Barnett, resigned the position earlier this year in March 2012, after serving for three years, to head a start-up financial firm, BCW Capital. Barnett is credited with intensifying efforts to identify suspected Ponzi schemes and expanded FSC efforts to alert and educate the public about those scams.

Deputy executive director Leon Anderson has been running the agency in the interim.

The FSC, which came into existence in August 2001, oversees the registration, solvency and conduct of approximately 614 firms and over 4,800 individuals doing business in the pensions, securities and insurance, both life and general industries.

It is governed by a board of commissioners established by law and made up of a chairman, and up to nine other commissioners, including the executive director.

The executive director is appointed by the other commissioners who, in turn, are appointed by the minister of finance.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com