Ky­ron Reg­is

ky­ron.reg­is@guardian.co.tt

RBC Roy­al Bank of T&T Ltd (RBC T&T)has re­vealed that it will be tem­porar­i­ly clos­ing two ad­di­tion­al branch­es due to COVID-19.

On the 16th April, the bank’s fil­ing was up­dat­ed on the T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change (TTSEC) web­site, where it not­ed the “tem­po­rary clo­sure of two (2) Bank Branch­es”—the San Juan and Princes Town Branch­es.

RBC T&T not­ed that San Juan cus­tomers would be di­rect­ed to the In­de­pen­dence Square Branch and the Princes Town cus­tomers would be fa­cil­i­tat­ed at the Branch lo­cat­ed at Gulf City Mall.

RBC in­di­cat­ed that this would re­main in ef­fect “un­til such a time RBC Roy­al Bank (Trinidad and To­ba­go) Ltd deems that COVID-19 is no longer a threat to the health and safe­ty of our em­ploy­ees and clients.”

Last month the bank al­so an­nounced the tem­po­rary clo­sure of its branch­es in Mara­bel­la, Trinci­ty and Point Lisas mak­ing it five clo­sures thus far, due to the coro­n­avirus.

As a re­sult of the fil­ing, Guardian Me­dia Ltd (GML) sent the fol­low­ing ques­tions to Richard Down­ie, Re­gion­al Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer, High Net Worth Clients and T&T.

1) What hap­pens to the em­ploy­ees of the branch­es that are tem­porar­i­ly closed? And are these em­ploy­ees un­em­ployed or re­de­ployed?

2) If these em­ploy­ees are not un­em­ployed or re­de­ployed and are sim­ply at home un­til the branch­es are op­er­a­tional once again—will they be re­quired to do any kind of work from home? Will these em­ploy­ees still be re­ceiv­ing their full month­ly salaries and will RBC have to cut staff in the midst of the cur­rent cri­sis?

In his re­sponse, Down­ie in­di­cat­ed that RBC em­ploy­ees who work at the branch­es iden­ti­fied for tem­po­rary clo­sure will con­tin­ue to sup­port our op­er­a­tions by be­ing re­de­ployed to near­by branch­es.

He in­di­cat­ed that these em­ploy­ees would be sup­port­ing clients over the phone from oth­er RBC lo­ca­tions, ful­fill­ing back-of­fice func­tions, or work­ing on oth­er projects.

Down­ie added, “We do not an­tic­i­pate any COVID-19-re­lat­ed job loss­es at RBC this year.”