Nadaleen Singh

While she de­clined to of­fer a pre­dic­tion about the re­po rate, First Cit­i­zens Group CEO Karen Dar­basie said the bank­ing group is ea­ger­ly wait­ing the Unit­ed States Fed­er­al Re­serve's de­ci­sion on a rate hike.

Her com­ments came as the Fed­er­al Re­serve be­gan its two-day meet­ing yes­ter­day. Of­fi­cials are wide­ly ex­pect­ed to leave short-term in­ter­est rates un­changed at their meet­ing, fol­low­ing a dis­mal May jobs re­port. A de­ci­sion on whether there will ne a rate in­crease is ex­pect­ed this af­ter­noon when the Fed re­leas­es its lat­est pol­i­cy state­ment and pro­jec­tions at 2 pm.

Dar­basie, who com­ment­ed on the mat­ter fol­low­ing a spe­cial share­hold­ers meet­ing at the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, said the bleak job re­port had raised doubts about the mar­ket and in­creased spec­u­la­tion on whether the US had suc­cumbed to pro­longed slump or is just on a brief pause.

Dar­basie said two months ago the Fed­er­al Re­serve had sug­gest­ed that in­ter­est rates might in­crease at this month's meet­ing.

"How­ev­er the job da­ta that came out a week and a half, or two weeks ago, showed US job growth to be much slow­er than an­tic­i­pat­ed. We are wait­ing to see what the Fed­er­al Re­serve chair­man says with re­spect to in­ter­est rates in­creas­ing in the US.

"I strong­ly sus­pect that based on the less than ro­bust re­sponse on the job growth on the job mar­ket that they will adopt a wait and see...but we will adopt a wait and see."

The US is one of T&T's main trad­ing part­ners, so eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ments there need to be con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tored, she said.

At yes­ter­day's spe­cial meet­ing First Cit­i­zens an­nounced the ap­point­ment of four new di­rec­tors: Idrees Omardeen, Troy Gar­cia, Samuel Hen­ry and Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane.

An­tho­ny Smart will serve a sec­ond term as chair­man and Courte­nay Williams will con­tin­ue in the post of di­rec­tor.

Dar­basie said even af­ter six months of op­er­at­ing in the midst of T&T's eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion First Cit­i­zens has record­ed strong growth in its de­posit base and in­creased prof­it be­fore tax.

"Our in­vest­ment grade rat­ing was reaf­firmed by Stan­dard and Poor's at BBB plus. The bank con­tin­ues to be on a very sol­id foot­ing to take ad­van­tage of the strengths that we have," she said.