Bahamas - FirstCaribbean International Bank
Bahamas - FirstCaribbean International Bank
Bahamas - FirstCaribbean International Bank
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Jan-Arne Farstad<br />
Managing Director<br />
Wealth Management<br />
Wealth Management<br />
Another Banner Year<br />
The <strong>Bank</strong>’s Wealth Management team produced another banner year in<br />
2007. Total deposits amounted to $4.7 billion (an increase of 19% from<br />
last year), loans increased to $535 million (up 118%) and additional Assets<br />
under Management or Administration reached $1.5 billion (up 25%). Wealth<br />
Management’s contribution to the <strong>Bank</strong>’s operating profit reached 25% (up<br />
from 21%).<br />
At the beginning of the year domestic and international Wealth Management<br />
was combined under one roof. Domestic clients with balances of $100,000<br />
or more and/or borrowings of $350,000 or more were transferred from<br />
Retail to Wealth Management in the course of the year. These clients are now<br />
served by dedicated relationship managers and professional support staff to<br />
ensure that personalised service and advice is provided to this valued group<br />
of our clients. Domestic clients are now enjoying the same access to best-inclass<br />
products, services and advice that previously only were available to our<br />
international clientele. When adjusted for the internal client transfers from<br />
Retail, loans grew by 27% and deposits by 1%.<br />
Our seven Wealth Management Centres located in The <strong>Bahamas</strong>, Barbados,<br />
the British Virgin Islands, Curacao, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Turks &<br />
Caicos Islands were upgraded to improve service levels. Each of these Wealth<br />
Management Centres is now organised in four teams of professionals who<br />
specialise in advisory, transactional, lending and compliance management.<br />
Each of these teams reports to a Wealth Management Director, who ensures<br />
that the four areas cooperate seamlessly to serve our Wealth Management<br />
clients. Some 225 professionals serve our Wealth Management clients across<br />
these islands. All seven Wealth Management Centres performed well with<br />
financial results ahead of 2006.<br />
We made good progress during the year in our specialty areas, such as<br />
banking services for Captive Insurers and Fund Managers. Our Investment<br />
Management practice was substantially improved by the addition of a<br />
number of highly qualified investment advisors. Our <strong>International</strong> mortgage<br />
offering again grew very substantially. Several enhancements to our Internet<br />
<strong>Bank</strong>ing platform were made that have increased the ease with which our<br />
clients can manage their monies.<br />
Our Curacao bank (acquired from ABN AMRO in 2006) now serves as<br />
centralised hub for execution of investment solutions for clients across all<br />
seven Wealth Management Centres and has performed exceptionally well<br />
despite going through a complete system conversion in 2007 from ABN<br />
AMRO’s system platform to a new state-of-the-art wealth management<br />
platform of its own. We thank our clients for their patience during this<br />
conversion process which is now thankfully behind us. The financial<br />
performance of Curacao has been exceptionally good, in particular when<br />
considering this disruption.<br />
We believe the combination of domestic and international Wealth<br />
Management provides good growth opportunities as we seek to be trusted<br />
advisors to our clients who reward us with a larger “share of their wallet”<br />
based on sound financial advice, best available open architecture investment<br />
products and the professionalism of our highly rated relationship managers.<br />
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