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The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) has wel­comed many of the 2026 Bud­get’s re­form mea­sures but cau­tioned that the pro­posed 0.25 per cent levy on com­mer­cial banks’ as­sets could damp­en ex­pan­sion and af­fect fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty if not care­ful­ly struc­tured.

In a state­ment is­sued to­day, BATT said it looks for­ward to meet­ing with the Fi­nance Min­istry to dis­cuss how the levy will be ap­plied, in­clud­ing whether gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ties and in­ter­bank place­ments will be ex­empt, and if the tax will be de­ductible from cor­po­rate in­come tax.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said its goal is to en­sure the mea­sure, “min­imis­es neg­a­tive ef­fects on ex­pan­sion ac­tiv­i­ties and pre­serves the sta­bil­i­ty of the bank­ing sec­tor, while care­ful­ly bal­anc­ing the gov­ern­ment’s need for ad­di­tion­al rev­enue with the pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.”