Dear Editor,
The Republic Bank gave advice, via two pieces of undated correspondence to the entity I’m employed by, that as a result of a platform upgrade, online access to accounts for the period November 01, 2019 to November 03, 2019 would not be possible. They assured though, that full access to these accounts would be possible from November 04, 2019.
On November 05, 2019, not having been issued requisite credentials I visited the bank’s Water Street location. This was after several unanswered calls to the numbers listed in the correspondence referenced above. It was soon made clear that online access was not yet available. The bank failed to meet its publicity schedule. October month’s account transaction details which I needed for the preparation of reconciliations and financials for that month were then, as a compromise, requested. The attending staff, perhaps nonchalantly, suggested that this too was not available, and may not be, probably until circa Thursday November 06, 2019. I considered this untenable. All I finally got were account balances.
In relation to my personal accounts, it is worthy of note that I have to date received no correspondence specific to these. I don’t yet know how I’d be able to obtain credentials for access to my account information. Apart from general public announcements which appear focused on revealing what the bank intends to accomplish but is yet to, no advice has been directed to me as to how or when I’d be able to effect online transactions.
Kindly permit another observation. The bank proposes to bequeath online administration of corporate accounts to the owners of those accounts. With this configuration, entities are encouraged, if not forced, to assign a single individual to control the entity’s financial resources. The consequence is that even without collusion, a single individual could remit that entity’s assets to wherever or whomever he wishes. I question if a responsible provider of financial services should not be required to clearly offer an alternative to allow for a choice between a single site administrator acting alone or multiple site administrators acting together.
Considering the impact of all of the above, which I consider failure by Republic Bank, I can probably agree with Guyana’s financial regulators for not approving their acquisition of Scotiabank, which acquisition would have permitted them greater control over the financial services of our Cooperative Republic. I wonder though, if this current failure of Republic Bank should not be viewed as a failure on the part of the said regulators who have a responsibility to safeguard the interests of the masses.
Yours faithfully,
Gavin Houston
