Trinidad’s FX Shortage: Matching the Solution to the Goal

Daniel Tittil
Jun 11
7 min read

For many professionals and business owners in Trinidad and Tobago, foreign exchange is no longer just a banking inconvenience, it is a planning issue.

It affects whether a business can pay suppliers, import inventory, subscribe to the technology it needs, travel for growth opportunities, settle foreign invoices, educate children abroad, or preserve wealth in a currency that reflects the family’s long-term goals.

The official exchange rate may still sit close to the familiar range most Trinidadians know. But most business owners also know that the official rate and practical access to foreign currency are two very different things.

If you cannot reliably obtain USD, CAD, EUR or GBP when you need it, then the real cost of foreign exchange is not just the quoted rate. It is the delay, uncertainty, opportunity cost, and risk you are forced to absorb while waiting.

That is why I believe the FX conversation in Trinidad needs to become more practical.

The right solution depends on the client’s goal.

Broadly, I separate the problem into two categories:

Transactional FX goals
Store-of-value FX goals

They are related, but they are not the same.

1. Transactional FX Goals: “I Need Hard Currency for a Specific Purpose”

This is the most urgent category.

A professional may need foreign currency for travel, professional exams, overseas conferences, software subscriptions, marketing tools, medical costs, tuition or family support.

A business owner may need USD to pay suppliers, import inventory, settle invoices, renew licences, fund international platforms, or invest in equipment.

The problem is that the traditional banking route is often slow, uncertain, and relationship-driven. In practice, the FX queue is not always experienced equally by all customers. Larger and more profitable relationships usually get better access.

That leaves many otherwise successful professionals and business owners frustrated. Some people then look to the black market. I understand why. When the formal market does not meet demand, informal markets develop.

But that comes with serious risks!

You may be dealing with counterparties you do not know. You may have limited to no recourse if funds are delayed or not delivered. You may be exposed to fraud, documentation issues, and reputational risk. For a serious professional or business owner, that is not a proper treasury strategy.

The better question is:

Are there fully legal, market-based ways to access hard currency outside of simply waiting on the bank?

The answer is yes.

But they require expertise, discipline and proper execution.

The Capital Market Route

One legal avenue involves using regional capital markets and cross-listed securities.

At a high level, certain shares trade across different Caribbean exchanges. In some cases, a security can be purchased in one market, transferred or settled through the appropriate channels, and sold in another market where the proceeds are received in a different currency.

For example, a Trinidad-based investor may be able to use a cross-listed equity route to move from TTD exposure into another regional currency, and then ultimately into USD or another hard currency, depending on market access, liquidity, settlement, broker relationships and execution.

This is not a loophole. It is a capital market transaction. But it is also not simple.

The implied exchange rate from this route is not fixed. It is driven by the relative prices of the security across markets, the JMD/USD rate, bid-ask spreads, commissions, liquidity, settlement timing and the available depth on both sides of the trade.

This is why I like to track the TTD-to-JMD-to-USD pathway through regionally cross-listed stocks. It gives a real-market-based signal of what investors are effectively willing to pay to move value through liquid regional markets.

But this route is not for the unsophisticated investor.

It carries:

Equity risk: the stock price can move while you are exposed.
Currency risk: the intermediate currency can move before conversion.
Execution risk: the trade may not fill at the desired size or price.
Timing risk: settlement and transfer timelines matter.
Liquidity risk: the market may not have enough depth for larger trades at a reasonable cost.
Operational risk: the process requires the right brokers, documentation, settlement instructions and counterparties.

This is where incentives matter.

A poorly executed transaction can be expensive. A rushed transaction can create unnecessary slippage. A transaction done without proper planning can produce a very different result from what the client expected.

For clients with meaningful needs, the objective is not simply “get FX at any cost.”

The objective is to balance:

speed,
cost,
certainty,
compliance,
market depth,
and risk.

That requires a dedicated and diligent approach.

Through my advisory work, I help clients assess whether a capital-market-based FX route is suitable for their objective, their amount, their urgency and their risk tolerance. This may involve coordinating across a network of brokers, counterparties and cambios, with the goal of achieving the right balance of cost efficiency and execution quality.

These transactions can vary widely in size, from tens of thousands to millions of USD, depending on market depth and opportunity. But the larger the transaction, the more important the planning becomes.

For the right client, this can be a legitimate, legal and practical way to meet a transactional FX objective.

For the wrong client, or the wrong timeline, it may not be worth the risk.

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2. Store-of-Value Goals: “I Want to Protect My Wealth from TTD Devaluation Risk”

The second goal is less urgent, but often more important.

This is the investor who is not necessarily trying to pay a supplier next week. Instead, they are asking a bigger question:

How exposed is my wealth to a future devaluation of the Trinidad and Tobago dollar?

This is a serious question.

Many Trinidadian investors hold the majority of their wealth in local assets: bank deposits, mutual funds, local stocks, local bonds, real estate, pension assets and operating businesses.

Some of these assets may protect wealth reasonably well. Others may be far more vulnerable than investors realize.

The key is to understand the currency exposure underneath the asset.

A company listed in Trinidad may not be purely “TTD exposure” if it earns meaningful hard-currency revenue, owns foreign assets, receives/pays USD dividends, exports goods or services, or has regional operations. On the other hand, a company with mostly local TTD revenues, TTD assets and limited pricing power may be much more exposed to domestic currency weakness.

This is one reason why, in recent years, companies and assets with stronger hard-currency revenue streams, foreign operations, or hard-currency balance sheet exposure have generally been more attractive to investors than purely domestic TTD exposures. It is also why traditionally TT focused companies is their pushing export business.

Smart real estate investors are asking 'can this property command USD buyers'?

That is not accidental.

When investors become concerned about devaluation, they begin to pay more attention to currency quality.

How I Think About Local Portfolio Protection

A proper portfolio review should ask:

What percentage of the portfolio is effectively exposed to TTD?
What percentage is linked to USD or other hard currencies?
Which companies earn hard-currency revenue?
Which companies have foreign assets or regional operations?
Which companies have pricing power if import costs rise?
Which bonds or mutual funds are truly hard-currency assets, and which are local-currency assets with a hard-currency label?
Are liabilities in TTD, USD, CAD or another currency?
Is the client’s future spending local, foreign, or mixed?
Is the client trying to preserve purchasing power, generate income, fund education, or eventually migrate capital?

This matters because devaluation risk is not just about the exchange rate, it is about the mismatch between your assets, your liabilities, your future expenses and your currency access.

A Trinidad-based family with children likely to study abroad has a different FX problem from a retiree spending mostly in TTD.

A business importing inventory has a different FX problem from a professional investing for retirement.

A business owner whose company earns USD has a different problem from a business owner whose revenue is entirely local but whose costs are imported.

This is why the solution cannot be generic.

The Wrong Way to Think About FX Protection

The wrong approach is to panic and say, “I just need to get out of TTD.”

That may sound logical, but it can lead to poor decisions. Overpaying for foreign currency, taking unnecessary equity risk, buying illiquid products, chasing unsuitable offshore investments, or concentrating too much wealth in one asset can create a new problem while trying to solve the original one.

FX protection should be designed, not improvised.

For some clients, the priority is transactional access.
For others, it is long-term wealth preservation.
For others, it is portfolio diversification.
For others, it is matching future liabilities like tuition, travel, business imports or retirement spending.

The correct strategy depends on your objective.

My View

Trinidad’s FX shortage is not a temporary inconvenience for serious professionals and business owners. It is a structural planning issue that should be incorporated into portfolio construction, business treasury planning and family wealth strategy.

If your goal is transactional, you need a legal, executable and cost-aware strategy to access hard currency.

If your goal is wealth preservation, you need to understand how much of your portfolio is truly exposed to TTD devaluation risk and how much is naturally protected by hard-currency earnings, assets or liabilities.

Both problems require analysis. Both require proper execution. And both require avoiding shortcuts that introduce unnecessary risk.

How I Can Help

If you are a professional, business owner or investor with a meaningful FX need, I can help you assess the available legal capital market avenues to achieve your currency objective.

This includes reviewing whether a cross-listed equity route, regional capital market transaction, or broader portfolio restructuring makes sense based on your amount, timeline, risk tolerance and end use of funds.

If your concern is not immediate currency conversion, but the long-term protection of your wealth from TTD devaluation risk, I can also review your portfolio and help identify where you may be overexposed, under-protected or inefficiently positioned.

This is not about speculation.

It is about planning properly in an environment where access to hard currency is no longer guaranteed simply because the official rate exists.

If you would like to review your FX strategy or portfolio exposure, you can book a discovery call with me here to ascertain which route makes sense for your situation:

Discovery Meeting

30min

Book Now

As always, no pressure, just perspective.

-Daniel Tittil, CFA, CAIA, MSc.

Lead Advisor at WealthwithDaniel.com

Chief Investment Officer at Legacy Wealth Management (Cayman) Ltd.

Portfolio & Wealth Manager, Director at Admiral Capital

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