Bermuda Monetary Authority chairman Cheryl Ann Lister says that the BMA's employee retention rate is consistent with the industry average despite a number of exits in recent months.

Recent staff departures from the BMA include its communications spokesperson as well as the entire legal department.

Mrs. Lister said however that she did not think of it as losing a "whole legal department" since the department only consisted of three people.

"At the end of the day people decide being regulatory counsel or doing a job in a regulatory environment, once they see what it is all about it, is not really what they want to do. There is nothing sinister or untoward about that. People move on and if we are doing our job, we will make people more marketable."

Mrs. Lister says that regulators world-wide are challenged to retain staff because "many people do come in and say I'll get a couple of years of compliance experience and expertise under my belt actually working with the regulator and then I can move on in my career because I'm much more marketable."

Mrs. Lister was unable to say how many of the BMA's 75 staff positions had turned over in the last year, however she said that a recent independent human resources audit found that the rate of people leaving was consistent with the industry average.

"You will tend to get a peak near the end of the year because there are certain aspects of our compensation system that they have to stay through the end of the year if they are going to reap the full benefit so you will see a peak and then after that life goes on," she said.

Mrs. Lister said that the Authority has been going through a very rapid growth and has faced a lot of challenges as its responsibilities have changed, but after being under a "developmental phase" for the past five years, the BMA is finally at a stage where it has a really good idea of how to play the role it is mandated for.

"We survived some very interesting challenges.

"We still have some on the horizon with Spitzer still out there and going after the insurance industry and occasionally throwing in Bermuda's name when it is not necessarily appropriate, but we survived Kerry and at the end of the day Bermuda is in a great position and the BMA is in a great position now. The framework is almost built," she said.

"We can really step back and really start looking at what do we do to maintain the framework and enhance it and as part of that in terms of staffing initiatives we are working with staff to develop career developments plans.

"We are going to be adding to our HR resources where for the first time ever we are going to set up a training and development unit ."