JOEL JULIEN

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

East­ern Cred­it Union has of­fi­cial­ly dis­con­tin­ued its bu­reau de change op­er­a­tions, there­by re­mov­ing the cred­it union from un­der the re­mit of the Cen­tral Bank.

In an of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence from ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment on Wednes­day, the man­agers of East­ern’s branch­es were in­formed that the bu­reau de change ser­vices had been dis­con­tin­ued.

This cor­re­spon­dence was de­liv­ered one day af­ter East­ern’s deputy chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Kester Lash­ley was coy in his re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on whether a de­ci­sion had been tak­en to stop the bu­reau de change op­er­a­tions.

“The or­gan­i­sa­tion con­tin­ues to re­view our busi­ness op­er­a­tions en­sur­ing that sound, pru­dent fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions are made. Whilst this ser­vice has been a part of East­ern’s land­scape for many years, it has not pro­duced the ex­pect­ed re­turns in align­ment with the strate­gic di­rec­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Dur­ing the 571st board meet­ing a de­ci­sion was made to ter­mi­nate this ser­vice,” the cor­re­spon­dence stat­ed.

The cor­re­spon­dence was signed by East­ern’s ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er branch op­er­a­tions, fi­nan­cial and ad­vi­so­ry ser­vices Stacey Bra­vo-Chaitram.

Ac­cord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dence all of the li­cences for the bu­reau de change have to be sur­ren­dered no lat­er than yes­ter­day.

The last day for bu­reau de change trans­ac­tions at East­ern was of­fi­cial­ly Wednes­day.

All cash re­lat­ed to the bu­reau de change ser­vices there­fore have to be pack­aged and re­turned to the Cen­tral Bank. East­ern was the on­ly cred­it union in the coun­try that had a bu­reau de change ser­vice.

“A bu­reau de change is an es­tab­lish­ment ded­i­cat­ed on­ly to the ex­change of cur­ren­cy. It does not pro­vide oth­er ser­vices of a fi­nan­cial na­ture,” ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Bank.

East­ern’s cash and cash equiv­a­lents as at De­cem­ber 31, 2020 was US$8.64 mil­lion.

The in­vest­ment se­cu­ri­ties were re­port­ed to be US$7.05 mil­lion.

With the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the bu­reau de change ser­vices East­ern is now no longer un­der the re­mit of the Cen­tral Bank which re­quired that all of­fi­cials meet the au­thor­i­ty’s fit and prop­er guide­lines.

East­ern is now on­ly un­der the over­sight of the Com­mis­sion­er for Co­op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence held on Tues­day East­ern’s hi­er­ar­chy ac­cused the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Co­op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment of col­lud­ing with a dis­grun­tled for­mer board mem­ber to de­stroy the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

At the press con­fer­ence were Lash­ley, East­ern’s vice pres­i­dent Arvin Isaac and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Lav­ern Fran­cis.

No­tably ab­sent from the press con­fer­ence was East­ern’s pres­i­dent Richard No­ray.