Nigel Bap­tiste yes­ter­day took up his ap­point­ment as Re­pub­lic Bank's man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and pres­i­dent of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL).

Bap­tiste has been with Re­pub­lic for 25 years and has served as an ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor for the past ten years.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day Re­pub­lic said that Bap­tiste leads the group with the sup­port of the team of ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors, which now com­pris­es Der­win How­ell, Roop­nar­ine Oumade Singh and Jacque­line Quam­i­na. Robert Le Hunte, who runs the bank's op­er­a­tions in Ghana and Ian De Souza, who runs the Bar­ba­dos sub­sidiary are al­so ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors.

"It is a priv­i­lege to have been giv­en this op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead what I be­lieve is an ex­cel­lent and ded­i­cat­ed team of in­di­vid­u­als," said Bap­tiste.

Bap­tiste re­places David Du­lal-White­way, who re­tired on Ash Wednes­day, af­ter ten years at the helm of the bank.

Chair­man of RFHL, Ronald Har­ford, said: "We are de­light­ed to wel­come Mr. Bap­tiste in­to his new role and look for­ward to con­tin­ued suc­cess un­der his lead­er­ship. We al­so thank Mr. Du­lal-White­way for his years of ser­vice, dur­ing which time he has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the de­vel­op­ment of the Group."

Re­pub­lic gen­er­at­ed $1.2 bil­lion in prof­it af­ter tax for its 2015 fi­nan­cial year, which end­ed on Sep­tem­ber 30. The 2015 per­for­mance was 0.6 per cent bet­ter than the bank's af­ter-tax prof­it in 2014.