Republic Bank Ltd is reviewing the cost of its services to individual and business customers but has no plans to increase fees, says managing director Nigel Baptiste.
"We are constantly reviewing our service charges, we are constantly reviewing how we do business," he told the T&T Guardian.
"The same expectations I have from the rest of the economy in terms of how you could make yourself more efficient, how you could do more value added service to your customers, to your employees, we are doing that internally as well. At this point in time, we don't have any plans to increase service fees."
Baptiste said RBL was interested in partnering with small businesses to help them successfully navigate through the current economic downturn.
"All we ask of them in return is open and transparent communication. We are going to try and reach out to clients small, personal, large in the sectors that we think would be the most challenged sectors in the economy," he said.
So you could be in the energy sector...services...they might be prime candidates for being under a little bit of pressure right now. We are going to try to reach out to them, but they need to reach out to us. Don't wait until a challenge comes and you realise you cannot pay. Come to the bank to let us work with you to try and develop a solution that works in your best interest."
Baptiste added: "Our future depends on their future. There is no benefit to me in closing down any business, so therefore, we need to be able to work with the client, but the client has to be willing to work with us as well."
He said as an institition that has been around for 179 years, RBL has been through crises before.
"We've made tough decisions with some businesses and we have also made great decisions with others where we partnered with them and we made it work. The difference in the two was the attitudes of the businesses. Once we believe that we are working with clients who want to work with us and who we can trust, then anything is possible in assisting those businesses," he said.
