Mention the words "tax haven" and Cheryl-Ann Lister get hot under the collar.

Even the world offshore raises the temperature in the room.

As the head of the Bermuda Monetary Authority, she is a champion of Bermuda as a fair place to do business, that excels not only because of its people having a good head for business, but having a well-regulated jurisdiction.

Mrs. Lister said: "I don't like the term offshore, we are an international finance centre. And I think we are one of the best." When the word tax haven is mentioned she said: "It is like a red flag to a bull".

Mrs. Lister came out of retirement in 1999 and took over the top job at the BMA. In 1995, at the tender age of 37, she had retired from EBT Securities and wanted to spend more time with her family. She was lured away from a busy home life by the offer of a part-time Chairman's post at the BMA.

Mrs. Lister had no idea the size of the task before her when she took on the job from the previous Chairman who had spent several mornings a week dealing with BMA business.

The last thing she expected was to end up working full time... and even late into the night as she worked on legislation that would change the way the Island was to be seen by the world.

The work-load alone, she reckons, has increased between five and six-fold and the number of staff under her wing has grown from about 20 - to near 50 - by the end of this year and another 20 are expected to join by 2003.

Mrs. Lister said: "My predecessor was here probably a couple of mornings a week. I work full time. It's probably about five or six times the amount of work because we spent the last three years essentially either putting together the legislation, revising the legislation and implementing the various legislation.

"Before that, the primary responsibility of the BMA was foreign exchange control and they had indirect responsibility for supervision and regulation for the banks deposit companies, but the Minister (of Finance) had the primary responsibility. Now we have the full responsibility for supervision, regulation as of January first we will have full responsibility for the supervision and regulation of banks, deposit companies, investment businesses, trust companies and insurance. And CIS (collective investment schemes), and let's not forget the stock exchange."

There have been tremendous changes in responsibilities over the last few years, starting in June 1998 when the new Investment Business Act was put in place and for the first time investment businesses were licensed, with the licensing done by the BMA.

In 2000, the Banks and Deposit Companies Act took the responsibilities for licensing of banks and deposit companies from the Government and brought it directly under the auspices of the BMA with the Minister of Finance left with having the ability to review the institutions from an economic/political perspective, community perspective, but not being able to influence the overall outcome.

Last week the Bermuda Monetary Amendment Act 2001 changed the way the business was structured and Parliament brought in new legislation that brought the insurance industry watchdog under the BMA's wings.

Mrs. Lister said: "In terms of the integration of the insurance side, the only thing that has really changed is that supervision of insurance will now take place directly under the auspices of the authority."

The insurance regulator and his team will move from being employed by the Bermuda Government and part of the civil service and have now become part of officially of the authority's staff.

Mrs. Lister, who will now, under new terms of the BMA bill, become Chief Executive Officer of the BMA, said: "I was previously retired. I anticipated half days, but it has been closer to full days. and nights. I cannot say I do not enjoy it. It has given me the opportunity for me to serve Bermuda in a way that I never anticipated."

She said that there has been a lot of pressure on offshore and by other jurisdictions for change, but Bermuda has remained one step ahead of the game through the BMA, the Ministry of Finance and the industry professionals working together.

Mrs. Lister said: "We have a good partnership with the ministry, the industry and ourselves. I cannot minimise the role industry has played as well and the commitment is there on the part of all three to make sure Bermuda did the right thing. If you look at some of our competitors, the speed at which they passes some of the legislation just shows they boiler-plated it from somewhere else and they are going to have difficulty implementing it because even their own industries weren't a part of it."

She said that some other countries tend to lump offshore jurisdictions into one "negative" category and saw them as having a negative impact on the financial stability of the world.

She added: "Because Bermuda has shown itself willing to be at the forefront and to make and sometimes be ahead of international standards, we have been able to come out of this in a very positive position in terms of the services that we provide.

"If we hadn't done a lot of what we would definitely be struggling right now - because we would be viewed very negatively right now as a jurisdiction and obviously some of the larger countries would put us under intense pressure to get our standards up."

Mrs. Lister's department has been criticised in some quarters for the amount of changes that have swept across the board, creating more paperwork for businesses and the changes difficult to keep track of.

Mrs. Lister said in response to her critics: "I would definitely agree the changes have been tremendous, there have been a lot of them but the pressure has been coming from external forces."