Yesterday, Dr Brian Langrin succeeded Richard Byles as governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ). Byles’ seven-year term, which began August 19, 2019, concluded on August 18, 2026. If you include his time as co-chair of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), this marks the end of an era.

It is also a testament to his immense credibility that despite his long career in the financial sector and as a banker, he cannot be said to have favoured the sector in his application of monetary policy.

As governor, Byles had steered Jamaica’s monetary policy through a series of economic shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic; the global surge in inflation that followed (the BOJ was one of the early movers in raising interest rates); Hurricane Beryl; Hurricane Melissa; and most recently, the US war with Iran and the resulting oil shock.

In thanking him for his service, Finance Minister Fayval Williams noted, “He guided the nation’s monetary policy with a steady hand through extraordinary times and leaves the bank stronger and more independent than he found it. He leaves a legacy of stability on which Dr Langrin will build.”

Under Byles’ stewardship, the BOJ entrenched its formal inflation-targeting framework through full statutory independence under the Bank of Jamaica (Amendment) Act of 2020, making inflation its primary target rather than, for example, unemployment or the exchange rate.

Similarly, on inflation, Byles had noted Jamaica recorded average annual inflation of 6 per cent between September 2019 and April 2026; however, if one excludes the global supply chain-induced inflation, it is an average of 5 per cent. The inflation range was set for the first time in September 2017 between 4 and 6 per cent, where it has remained.

He strengthened the credibility of the newly independent central bank during the particularly challenging COVID-19 pandemic period when he brought inflation back towards its target range through aggressively increasing interest rates from 0.5 per cent to 7 per cent while preserving the stability of the financial system.

As he said himself, in his last appearance in Parliament, in June, “Jamaica had no bank failures” during his tenure, unlike during previous terms, with which he would have been very familiar. Of course, the Twin Peaks regulatory framework, announced in January 2023 — under which the BOJ would supervise the prudential soundness of the financial system, while the Financial Services Commission (FSC), or a new financial conduct authority, would regulate market conduct and the treatment of customers — must also be regarded as unfinished business.

Economist Gerard Johnson, in his remarks on Byles’ tenure, said, “Partially due to relentless external shocks, the Byles era was focused on entrenching the independence of the BOJ, rather than introducing structural reforms in the financial sector.

“There was a major policy shift at the end of his tenure to increase the private investment space for institutional investors. However, long-standing issues like competition between banks and financial inclusion advanced more slowly.

“The single-most important policy change at the outset of his tenure was the successful and seamless change in Jamaica’s foreign exchange policy away from a free float to a more managed smoothing of its path, a change that may have been the pivotal factor in enabling Jamaica to meet its inflation target despite the mega shocks.”

Byles also innovated, pioneering Jam-Dex, which made Jamaica one of the first countries in the world to issue a central bank digital currency.

In welcoming Dr Langrin’s appointment as governor of the BOJ, Minister of Finance Fayval Williams stated, “Dr Brian Langrin is a forward-looking leader whose experience spans Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the wider international development community. His deep understanding of monetary policy, financial stability, innovation, regional partnerships, and international cooperation will serve Jamaica well as we navigate a rapidly changing global economy. The Government reaffirms its full commitment to the independence of the Bank of Jamaica and to the continuity of the sound monetary and financial policies that have anchored our economic stability.”

She noted the appointment follows a selection process led by a search committee established in April 2026, which assessed a strong field of local and international candidates.

The Ministry of Finance is right to emphasise that Dr Langrin brings more than two decades of leadership across central banking, financial stability, and multilateral development institutions, with a reputation for strengthening institutions, modernising financial systems, and advancing data-driven policy.

In its own release, the BOJ noted his tenure at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as regional financial stability advisor at the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre — the IMF-administered regional body, advising central banks across the region — at which Byles’ predecessor, the very consequential Brian Wynter also worked before becoming BOJ governor. Both Wynter and Langrin would have worked on our two domestic sovereign debt exchanges of 2010 and 2013, and Wynter oversaw the practical move to a free float of the exchange rate and inflation targeting.

The BOJ also noted Langrin’s time as executive director at the Inter-American Development Bank Group, chairing the board’s Audit and Assurance Oversight Committee, and his service to the World Bank Group, where he was board advisor to the executive director for Canada, Ireland, and the Caribbean as well as his role as chief economist in its Research and Economic Programming Division and then head of the Financial Stability Department at the BOJ.

Most recently, the BOJ notes, Langrin advised the Caribbean Community (Caricom) on modernising the region’s digital financial market infrastructure. In March, he presented a related economic paper, ‘A Formal Architecture for Regional Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Settlement Hubs: Integrating Game Theoretic Incentives with Byzantine Fault Tolerance’ at The University of the West Indies’ WECON Economic Conference, titled Climate Change Symposium: Estimating and Financing the True Cost of Climate Change to Small Island Developing States, which could be useful to prospects of a regional capital market.

He holds a PhD in economics from Pennsylvania State University in the US, a MSc in economics, and a BSc in economics and management from The University of the West Indies, and has published extensively on financial stability and monetary policy.

Dr Langrin noted that he was committed “to preserving the bank’s hard-won credibility and independence, to keeping inflation low and stable, and to advancing the modernisation of our financial system for the benefit of every Jamaican”.

Keith Collister