First Caribbean chooses Cayman to launch new Capital Markets business

Wednesday, September 8, 2004

First Caribbean Bank officially introduced its Capital Markets business in the Cayman Islands. The bank chose to launch its product in the Cayman Islands ahead of similar launches in Jamaica, Barbados, The Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago.

First Caribbean Executive Director of Capital Markets Raymond Campbell said the Cayman Islands was chosen as the first launch because it is a “very large and important block in the First Caribbean landscape,” and because of its “large offshore sector.”

Mr Campbell went on to explain that the Cayman Islands is “a very logical place to start and gives us a visible place in the sector and it is a marketplace were both Barclays and CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) underwent more change here then anywhere else in the region.”

Mr Campbell said First Caribbean launched the new product following a survey by the company, which identified 120 corporate entities and 20 governments in the region who could be targeted by their Capital Markets business.

“Our capital markets business has been designed specifically to assist Caymanian and regional entities to become more competitive and efficient in a global environment,” he said, adding that First Caribbean offered customers an asset base of US$9 billion, an market capitalisation of US$2 billion and an A- Standard & Poor’s rating.

The new business will operate from two core regional centres. Jamaica will service the Northern Caribbean: Jamaica, the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, Turks and Caicos Islands.

Barbados will service clients in the Southern Caribbean: Barbados, Belize, the Eastern Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago.

Managing Director of First Caribbean Cayman, Tom Crawford said: “We recently completed our historic integration process as we have installed a standard technology platform in 15 countries.

“We will soon introduce telephone banking across our network. Others are starting to recognise our achievements,” he added highlighting the bank’s awards as ‘best Emerging Market Bank in Latin America’ by Global Finance magazine, and ‘Bank of the Year’ by The Banker magazine.

Back...