Minister of Financial Services and Investment, Mrs. Allyson Gibson, praised First Caribbean International Bank for delivering on its commitment “to make The Bahamas a primary technology centre for the Northern Caribbean.ﾔ
The Minister made her remarks at the opening of the bank’s first of two Customer Service Centres designed to provide banking services to its customers in the 15 countries of the region that the bank serves.
Since the merger in October 2002 of Barclays and CIBC’s retail, offshore and corporate banking operations, the new entity First Caribbean International has moved to provide what the Minister termed a “streamlined package of solutions” designed to meet its customers’ needs.
Minister Gibson said that the Customer Service Centre which presently services First Caribbean’s Customers in The Bahamas, The British Virgin Islands and shortly, Barbados is evidence that FirstCaribbean is “using technology to rapidly advance the growth and development of the bank..”
She said the bank’s investment in telecommunications and advanced computer systems was a “loud and clear message to the world” that The Bahamas “was well-positioned” with the “capability and capacity to operate at this level.”
Managing Director of FirstCaribbean International Bank (Bahamas) Sharon Brown said that the facility, which will eventually be part of a network servicing their clients in the Caribbean, has a staff of 17 who provide telephone banking services to FirstCaribbean clients.
The career banker said that the Centre represented a ﾓsignificant investment for usﾔ and was ﾓpart of our promise of expanding our delivery channels to our customers.ﾔ
The facility includes a Service Delivery and Support Centre, providing transactional processing, a help desk and technical support for all 15 countries in the region.
An Operations Processing Centre provides back office support for the bank’s branch network while the International Payment Centre handles all international payment transactions such as wire transfers, letters of credit and bills for collections etc.
The Centre has necessarily raised the bar on telecommunication and computer systems. The system allows clients in the British Virgin Islands to dial a number that links them to the centre here in The Bahamas and access to timely information.
Minister Gibson called this development, “a demonstration of e-banking at work.” She went on to state that a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report said that developing countries were becoming increasingly aware that “e-commerce can be a tremendous boon to the economy.”
Being aware of the importance of e-commerce, the Minsiter said the government had already introduced legislation to make e-commerce the third pillar of the economy.
“Our objective is to make The Bahamas synonymous with e-business,” she told the gathering of bankers and members of the business community who came to witness the official opening of the facility.
Ms. Brown announced that, “early next year an Interactive Voice Response system will be installed.” She said the new communication system would provide customers with greater versatility in conducting their banking.
In a prepared statement, Ms. Brown described the Call Centre as the bank’s attempt to make banking as convenient as possible for its clients. Additional options include online banking in 2004.
Also in 2004 the bank expects to have completed the full integration of the former Barclays and CIBC branches into a single platform linking them to the entire regional network in the following countries: Anguilla, Antigua The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St.Kitts, St. Vincent and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The Bahama Journal
