The Bermuda Monetary Authority is celebrating 35 years of overseeing the Island?s banking and monetary affairs.

The BMA was set up in February, 1969, with Government?s passing of the Bermuda Monetary Authority Act.

The mandate for the regulatory body has increased through the years ? and in recent years was expanded to include oversight for the Island?s insurance sector ? but it was initially established to implement a strategic and long-term policy with three principal mandates: establish a currency for the Island; adopt a supervisory framework for the banking sector and create an advisory body to assist the Bermuda Government and public bodies on banking and monetary matters, as well as exchange control.

Yesterday, further amendments to the BMA Act were approved by Bermuda?s Senate, with the aim of tightening regulations to limit white collar crime on these shores.

The changes followed the BMA being restructured in 2002 as an autonomous regulatory body, giving it operating independence while leaving the BMA accountable to the Finance Minister.

In a press statement last week, BMA CEO and chairman Cheryl-Ann Lister said, since its introduction, the regulatory authority had witnessed a number of significant economic events including the abolition of the interest rate ceiling, the development of a securities market in Bermuda, the abolition of the ten percent foreign currency purchase tax, and substantial relaxation of exchange controls.

The BMA also, in recent years, exempted Island banks from 60/40 local and foreign ownership rules, paving the way for Bermuda?s financial services sector to open up to foreign banks including the Bank of Bermuda?s recent $1.3 billion sale to multinational banking giant HSBC Plc.

Through the decades the BMA said it had not only grown in the responsibilities it oversees but also in numbers, with it now having 62 full-time staff. Employee levels today are in marked contrast to the ten staff it started out with in 1970.

By year end the BMA said its numbers would likely reach 80 employees.

Approximately 85 percent of the BMA?s staff are Bermudian or spouses of Bermudians.

In 1997, the BMA moved into its official headquarters to the Green Shutters building on Burnaby Street. However, due to continued and anticipated expansion, the BMA?s Investment Division has now moved into newly completed facilities in the former Staples offices on Reid Street.