Sep 2015 Financial News

Bank poised for further growth

Sep 18, 2015

BARBADOS AND OTHER regional economies remain depressed but CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank has found a way to carve an improved performance out of the gloom.

Managing director retail, business and international banking Mark St Hill said a combination of “reorganising ourselves internally to the conditions” and “understanding the needs of the consumer” had started to pay off for the bank.

And he said innovative projects, including transforming the former Rendezvous, Christ Church branch into a regional “first of its kind” ultra modern sales centre, was expected to spur further growth by the time FirstCaribbean’s financial year ended next month, and heading into 2016.

Speaking in an interview with BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY, St Hill said instead of taking “the easy route and just walk away and not do the business”, the bank had “found the niche in terms of what the consumer is continuing to look for and being accessible to those customers”.

“So market opportunity and size may have decreased but we as a bank have made sure that we continue to get our market share within whatever [size] that pie is. In terms of our loan sales, we have already exceeded our 2014 sales performance and we are very pleased with that performance,” he said.

“Really, about two years ago, we recognised that the construct of our retail operation was not focussed towards what consumers are looking for, flexibility in terms of getting loans for their house, their car, their children and so forth.

“So ... we set out a plan of making that accessibility more readily available and that’s why you would visibly see the introduction of loan and mortgage centres, platinum banking, business banking.”

St Hill said FirstCaribbean had “raised the prominence of those access points for our clients and I think that has paid tremendous dividends for us in turning around our sales performance”.

He added: “At the end of quarter three, which was the end of July, we surpassed all of 2014’s sales so we have surpassed 2014’s performance in terms of productive loan sales, which includes mortgages, car loans, consumer loans.

“We surpassed those targets at the end of the quarter and that’s really a pleasing performance because a lot of it is driven more so by us reorganising our construct, providing more accessible points through loans and mortgage centres and platinum banking and reconstructing our branches that those access points are more readily available and prominent to the client. So that has worked tremendously well.”

St Hill said the new way of doing things would be extended from the modern branch at Warrens to the new centre at Rendezvous.

“Rendezvous is the first of its kind across the region where we are solely building an area for you to access those loans and service needs....and it will also combine...alternate channels,” he noted.

“What you will also find there is an extensive ABM network. It will be the first location we have that will have four ABMs and over time, we will be converting those ABMs to actually be intelligent. So they will count cash, they will give you receipts, and as the technology gap in the Caribbean closes, we even expect them to be reading cheques and all of that.”

“This centre will also serve our business banking segment, which is growing quite rapidly...And then there is platinum banking which has grown tremendously over the years.”

Having had a good third quarter, St Hill said “all indications are that we will have a strong fourth quarter. That’s our expectation”.

Source:
SHAWN CUMBERBATCH
shawncumberbatch@nationnews.com
Nation News
Friday September 18, 2015

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