Belize Bank Awaits Positive News on Correspondent Banking Relationships

Lyndon Guisseppe

And from crime to the financial sector…Prime Minister Dean Barrow is away on an official visit to Washington where he is attending a series of high-level meetings with officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, as well as the IMF and World Bank.  Government is attempting to solve the issue of correspondent banking to avert a crisis within Belize’s financial sector.  P.M. Barrow is heading a delegation which also includes Financial Secretary Joseph Waight and Central Bank Governor Glen Ysaguirre.  The last time he traveled to the United States on account of this particular issue, P.M. Barrow was accompanied by Belize Bank Chairman Lyndon Guisseppe where they met with executives from the Bank of America. The Belize Bank is among a number of financial institutions, including others in the region, directly affected by de-risking and has been saddled with that challenge for the past eighteen months.  Guisseppe is optimistic that the P.M. will return with favorable news this weekend.

Lyndon Guisseppe, Chairman, Belize Bank Ltd.

“Our goal is to become and to remain the preeminent banking group not simply in Belize but in Central America and the Caribbean.  So when you say maintaining our position in Belize, we have actually loftier goals than that.  We want to dominate Belize but we have aspirations of being a large player in the Caribbean and certainly certain parts of Central America.”

Isani Cayetano

“And how are we doing in terms of achieving that goal?  Where are we?”

Lyndon Guisseppe

“The Belize Bank continues to be the largest bank in Belize.  We’ve had our challenges in the last eighteen months as you are probably aware with respect to the correspondent banking issue.  The prime minister and a delegation is in Washington today meeting with a number of officeholders, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank.  We remain extremely optimistic that through the initiative of the prime minister, as well as what we’re doing that we’re going to resolve the correspondent banking issue and once that happens, I mean, really the sky is the limit.”

Also affected by the loss of corresponding banking are Atlantic International Bank and Heritage Bank.