Impending financial services legislation may put a lid on foreign businessmen coming to the Island to solicit investors. Local securities dealers fear that some firms representatives are arriving without any regulatory contact or Immigration approval.

First Bermuda Securities president Mr. Jeffrey Conyers said: "It's a very touchy issue for Bermuda to deal with. The Bermuda Monetary Authority or some official group should be looking at it quite seriously. "People are coming into Bermuda and effectively are offering securities to Bermudians and don't really have any representative here or any real mandate to do that.

Fundamentally there is a problem there.'' The issue is whether or not the BMA has any authority to act when outside groups solicit business in Bermuda, without the benefit of any affiliation with any local group. Mr. Peter Sousa, manager of the BMA investment services division, admitted there were some circumstances that allowed some outside firms to operate in Bermuda under the Companies Act. One of the reasons the BASD was established was to protect the Bermudian consumer. Securities dealers want a self-regulatory group to resolve issues of concern. Bermuda Assocation of Securities Dealers president, Mr.

E.T. (Bob) Richards of Bermuda Asset Management said: "Sometimes it is more of an immigration matter and the authorities have been turning a blind eye to that since the beginning of time. It is problematic.'' Immigration authorities said this week that any non-Bermudians practising their profession in Bermuda needed the permission of the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, whether they were paid in Bermuda or not. Mr. Richards said: "I've always been concerned about this. It is always a potential difficulty, because at the moment, from a supervisory level, it is hard to police. "People come in all the time and hold seminars, presentations or whatever. The question is whether or not they are offering investment advice to residents and soliciting business. I'm not sure that I know of any financial prohibition to it. "All of these things are in the mix, in terms of the Minister of Finance bringing forth his financial services legislation, with particular respect to the licensing of purveyors of investment services. This is all part of it. "How they are actually going to deal with these types of matters, I'm not sure. It is not an area that the association has concentrated on a whole lot. "My personal view is that people who would put their money with organisations that just come here and give them "a dog and pony show'', and don't check out anything about the company, really have themselves to blame if they lose money. "What we are most concerned about are people who come here in a similar vein, but who set up some sort of Bermudian entity, which is ostensibly an offshore entity, but actually sells their services to the residents of Bermuda.'' Mr. Conyers agreed the work permit issue may be the only thing at present that may force legal contact with some regulatory body. He noted: "It is not like I could just go to the US or the UK and begin marketing securities without regulatory approval. "Nobody else is allowed to come to Bermuda and do business without some sort of permission. Why should investments be different? It is really to protect investors as much as anything else. "It is hard to regulate the investment industry, because a lot of it is simply done over the phone. But there are people who are flying into Bermuda, without any formal contact.

"I'm not talking about the firms that are working with local securities dealers. They are represented by a local firm and when something goes wrong, the investor has something to put their hat on. That's the focal point.

There's got to be a line of responsibility somewhere.''