by Bajan

CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank’s Barbados business has been awarded the prestigious Bank of the Year 2013 by The Banker Magazine.

Remarking on the award, Rik Parkhill, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, said the bank was honoured to have been chosen for the award for 2013, despite a difficult economic environment marked by declining profitability.

Mr. Parkhill said a major achievement of CIBC FirstCaribbean, in being chosen by The Banker as the ‘Best Bank in Barbados‘ during the period, was the institution diversifying its revenue streams as well as aggressively managing delinquencies and non-performing loans.

“We focused a number of initiatives aimed at stabilizing our business performance and positioning our bank for growth. We have introduced several improvements to our business, tailored to the needs of the individual markets in which we operate. In Barbados, improved results were largely driven by aggressive management of delinquency in addition to enhanced oversight and governance processes to improve portfolio management and insight in order to encourage early identification of credit circumstances, thereby allowing for timely and effective remedial intervention.”

Despite the tough market conditions, CIBC FirstCaribbean was a market leader in 2013 with several innovative products, tailored to its customers’ needs. Among these innovations were the Bank@Work initiative and the Medical Professionals’ Edge package. Bank@Work is a new approach to providing companies and their employees with access to additional products and services as a direct benefit of making CIBC FirstCaribbean their main banking partner. It comprises a package of best-in-class products at a very competitive price. Essentially, Bank@Work provides a “one-stop-shop” for employees of the bank’s corporate clients who want the convenience of having their banking services in one package. Meanwhile, the Medical Professionals’ Edge package is designed as a bundled offer consisting of personal and business banking products and services aimed at assisting practitioners in the field of medicine at the various stages of their careers or business life cycle.

“Our intention is to aggressively go after business in the Barbados market, partnering with our customers to ensure their ability to prosper in the still-challenging Barbados market,” noted Managing Director for Barbados, Donna Wellington.

Since its inception, CIBC FirstCaribbean has received numerous awards from The Banker. In 2011, it was named the Bank of the Year in Barbados. In 2010 it was named Bank of the Year for its operations in the Cayman Islands, following another win in 2009 as Bank of the Year in The Bahamas. In 2008, both The Bahamas and Barbados shared top honours, and prior to this, The Bahamas had been joint recipients with The Cayman Islands and Jamaica. The Bank’s Barbados business was also named Bank of the Year in 2004.

Regarded as the industry standard for banking excellence, the Banker Awards are subscribed to by the world’s leading financial institutions which are judged on their ability to deliver shareholder returns and to gain strategic advantage. This year’s awards ceremony took place at the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane in London on November 28th 2013.

First published in January 1926, The Banker is one of the world’s leading financial journals providing a truly global perspective through its coverage of over 120 countries during the year. News articles include coverage of retail and investment banking, capital markets, FX & Treasury, global securities services and banking technology, as well as country and regional surveys.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.bajanreporter.com/2013/12/cibc-firstcaribbean-named-bank-of-the-year-2013/