Gaetan Bucher

Gaetan Bucher is a prominent banker from the Dominican Republic and is presently the founder and head of the Independent Financial Centre of the Americas (IFCA), which is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

Background

The Bucher family is considered part of the upper class establishment in the Dominican Republic. Of Swiss descent, Bucher's grandfather became a prosperous sugar merchant in the plantation town of San Pedro de Macorís along the coast from Santo Domingo. Mr. Bucher's father also made his name in sugar - restructuring the industry during the 1960s and going on to become a major influence in the country's political establishment. Gaetan Bucher chose a departure from the sugar industry and studied at the Schiller University in Lausanne, Switzerland, before starting a career in private banking.

The Independent Financial Centre of the Americas

Bucher conceived the concept for the International Financial Centre of the Americas just as the Dominican Republic's banking crisis was gathering momentum, but he claims the timing was not an issue. His idea was to build a financial centre that could become the first electronic clearing and settlement centre in the region, a banking hub that would strip the time factor out of traditional transactions, and that would be accompanied by the highest standards of compliance. ["Centre of Excellence, Dominican Republic: Island of the Future", "The Banker", Supplement April 2006]

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