First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank Ltd yes­ter­day an­nounced that the sale of its busi­ness in Grena­da to Grena­da Co-op­er­a­tive Bank Ltd had re­ceived ap­proval from the East­ern Caribbean Cen­tral Bank.

The banks said the process of trans­fer­ring First­Caribbean’s clients to Grena­da Co-Op­er­a­tive Bank Ltd is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by Ju­ly 14, 2023.

CIBC First­Caribbean an­nounced the pro­posed di­vesti­ture of its busi­ness in St Vin­cent, Grena­da, St Kitts and Nevis and Do­mini­ca in Oc­to­ber of 2021.

CIBC First­Caribbean suc­cess­ful­ly trans­ferred its St Vin­cent clients to Bank of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines last month.

Speak­ing on the trans­ac­tion Don­na Welling­ton, CIBC First­Caribbean’s Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor for Bar­ba­dos and OECS said, “This helps us de­liv­er on our strat­e­gy of sim­pli­fy­ing our busi­ness. We give our clients in Grena­da our com­mit­ment that while we are work­ing with Grena­da Co-op­er­a­tive Bank Ltd to com­plete the trans­fer, we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide them with first class ser­vice right un­til the mo­ment we close our doors for the last time; and our em­ploy­ees with the best pos­si­ble work ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Grena­da Co-Op­er­a­tive Bank Ltd Lar­ry Lawrence al­so com­ment­ed said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is work­ing to en­sure a smooth tran­si­tion of First­Caribbean’s cus­tomers and looks for­ward to wel­com­ing them to the Co-op Bank fam­i­ly.

The two banks will short­ly be­gin com­mu­ni­cat­ing to clients about the plans and dates for the with­draw­al of ser­vices from CIBC First­Caribbean and the trans­fer of client in­for­ma­tion to GCBL, as part of the tran­si­tion process.

In Oc­to­ber 2021, First­Caribbean an­nounced the sale of its op­er­a­tions in five coun­tries—Aru­ba, St Vin­cent, Grena­da and St Kitts & Nevis & Do­mini­ca.

In Ju­ly 2022, for­mer CEO of CIBC First­Caribbean not­ed, “We are pleased at the ap­proval of the sales in St Vin­cent and St Kitts. This helps us de­liv­er on our strat­e­gy of sim­pli­fy­ing our busi­ness.

“It’s a com­plex set of trans­ac­tions and it will be some months be­fore we com­plete the trans­fer of client ac­counts over to the pur­chas­ing banks.

“In the in­ter­im, we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide our clients with first class ser­vice through a mod­ern every­day bank­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and our em­ploy­ees with the best pos­si­ble work ex­pe­ri­ence.”

But in April this year, First­Caribbean an­nounced that it did not re­ceive fi­nal ap­proval for the sale of its op­er­a­tions in St Kitts.