Heritage Bank Anticipates Smooth Transition

Earlier you heard the farewell from FCIB’s Country Manager, Glen Smith. At the close of business a few hours ago, the official transfer of assets from FCIB to Heritage Bank got underway.  In downtown Belize City, a team of workmen toiled diligently at FCIB’s Albert Street branch, removing boxes of files from that building, as well as signs and banners belonging to its previous owners.  The transition is set to take place without a glitch over the weekend so that by Monday, customers can begin to access their existing accounts from any Heritage Bank location. Today, we also spoke with Steven Duncan, Managing Director of Heritage Bank. 

Steven Duncan

Steven Duncan, Managing Director, Heritage Bank

“The physical transfer of assets should take place over this weekend.  As we’ve been saying to the public previously, today is the last working day for First Caribbean International Bank in Belize.  So they wind down their operations today and once they close off their books this evening the assets will be transferred to Heritage Bank.  So that is basically where we are with that. We had committed to First Caribbean that we would try to employ some of the employees from that organization and the process was for the employees to apply to Heritage Bank, those who are interested because we knew everybody would not be interested.  Some people see it as an opportunity to move on to a new job, to a new career path, a new profession, that type of thing.  So we recognized that.  As a result, we had, I think, somewhere around forty applications, I don’t know the exact amount, and out of that we had issued offers to like about twenty-five, I think, or there about.  That’s more or less the numbers in a rough sense, you know.  Those employees, we have already, about two have already started.  They started earlier this week or so.  The others, the bulk of the others will start on Monday and the remainder will start around the middle of February, alright.  So that is where we are with that. First Caribbean’s assets will serve to double the balance sheet size of Heritage Bank.  In terms of ranking by asset size, it use to be Belize Bank and ScotiaBank at the top there and then Atlantic Bank and then First Caribbean and Heritage.  Well, basically what is happening is that the two people at the bottom are coming together, in terms of their assets, so we will move closer to the top but we will not overtake anybody.  But we will move closer to the bigger boys at the top, you know.”