The Cayman Islands Government has appointed Mr G Neville Grant, a Canadian National who has more than 25 years' international supervisory, regulatory and commercial banking experience, as head of its new Monetary Authority. Mr Grant is to assume his position in the Cayman Islands in May.

The Cayman Islands' Currency Board and the Financial Services Supervision department were integrated into a single Monetary Authority in January 1997. The Monetary Authority's two main function are to manage the Cayman Islands' financial industry. This includes 573 banks, 407 captive insurance companies, 32 licensed company managers and 1337 mutual funds.

Mr Grant's experience includes a six-year period of secondment to the International Monetary fund (IMF), during which he served as banking supervision advisor to a number of countries, including Zambia, Jamaica, Hungary, Tanzania, and Vanuatu, where he is currently assigned. Before his work with the IMF he was responsible for the examination of all banks in Canada when he was appointed the Canadian Government's director of Financial Institutions Supervision in 1987. Prior to that he served as a senior examination officer in the Office of the Inspector general of Banks of the Canadian Government's Department of Finance.

Mr Grant's private sector experience includes service as an investment analyst with the Bank of Nova Scotia in 1971, and five years with the Bank of Montreal, during which he served in the economics department, at a commercial branch, and at the national credit department

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