(Trinidad Express) Three years ago the executive management of Republic Bank Ltd stopped accepting CLICO’s Executive Flexible Premium Annuity (EFPA) financial instruments as security for bank loans.
Ronald Harford, chairman of Republic Bank, said the relationship between the bank and CLICO was “adversarial” and once the bank learned that certain branches were accepting these policies as collateral, the practice was stopped.
He was speaking at an event entitled “An evening with Ronald Harford” hosted by the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business at the school’s Mt Hope campus on Monday.
“Once we came to the knowledge that at the branch level, (bank staff) who had certain discretion, that they were taking these instruments as securities for the loans we picked it up and we decided three years ago that this was not something that we wanted to do. This was a liability from CLICO and this was an operation that was considerably over-extended,” he said.
“Our relationship with CLICO was a very simple one, at the end of a half-year, at the end of the year, I would leave the board meeting I would pick up the phone and ring (former CLICO executives Andre Monteil or Lawrence Duprey) and say I’m coming to speak to you. I’d say ‘gentlemen I want to let you know we made so much money and this is the share of the dividend, it will be announced in the papers tomorrow’ and that was it. We kept very much at arm’s length with each other.”
Harford, a career banker, was recently awarded the Chaconia Gold medal for long and meritorious service in the sphere of business.
In 2005 he retired as managing director of Republic Bank, but continues as chairman of RBL and a number of its subsidiaries.
He also sits on the board of directors of the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business.
