In January 2023, the Government of Jamaica announced that it is pursuing a “Twin Peaks” regulatory model for the financial sector. According to the Jamaica Information Service release dated January 26, 2023, the reform will modify the country’s traditional sector-by-sector supervisory framework, where different regulators oversee different types of financial institutions.
Under the current system, the Bank of Jamaica supervises deposit-taking institutions such as commercial banks, while the Financial Services Commission regulates non-bank financial institutions such as securities dealers, insurance companies, and pension funds. Importantly, in this sector-based model each regulator performs both prudential supervision and market conduct supervision within its sector—monitoring the financial health of institutions while also ensuring they treat customers fairly.
The proposed Twin Peaks structure reorganizes supervision around regulatory objectives rather than sectors. In this model, the Bank of Jamaica will oversee prudential regulation—ensuring the financial soundness and stability of institutions across the financial system—while the Financial Services Commission will oversee market conduct and consumer protection across all financial institutions.
The concept of Twin Peaks was first proposed in 1995 by economist Michael Taylor, who argued that financial regulation should be organized according to objectives rather than types of institutions. Taylor observed that financial firms were increasingly operating across banking, insurance, and securities markets, making sector-based supervision less effective.
The model gained global prominence after the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, when regulators discovered that fragmented oversight allowed systemic risks to build across the financial system. Institutions had become highly interconnected, but regulatory structures often examined only individual sectors. As a result, risks that threatened the stability of the entire system went undetected.
In response, several countries—including the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands—adopted the Twin Peaks model to improve system-wide risk monitoring and consumer protection.
Jamaica is now moving in the same direction. A report in the Jamaica Observer on January 11, 2026 noted that the Bank of Jamaica is awaiting legislative changes needed to implement the new framework.
The significance of this reform is structural. Instead of regulators each handling both prudential and conduct oversight within separate sectors, the system will clearly divide responsibilities: BOJ will focus solely on financial stability, while FSC will focus solely on market conduct and consumer protection. The goal is a stronger regulatory structure that can better detect systemic risks while ensuring fair treatment of financial consumers.