GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s newest bank, ANSA Bank, will to­day un­veil its new brand at the for­mer Bank of Bar­o­da’s branch­es in Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas and San Fer­nan­do.

Com­ment­ing on the open­ing of ANSA Bank, Chair­man David Du­lal-White­way in a state­ment said, “Our goal is to cre­ate a high­ly-re­spon­sive re­tail bank where our cus­tomers find in­no­v­a­tive fi­nan­cial so­lu­tions suit­ed to their lives in an easy and seam­less man­ner.

“They will en­joy dig­i­tal ease-of-do­ing-busi­ness and prod­ucts that are in line with in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. We have seen how the im­por­tance of these fun­da­men­tals have been mag­ni­fied due to the pan­dem­ic.”

Robert Le Hunte, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor who is re­join­ing the bank­ing fra­ter­ni­ty with the aim of “dis­rupt­ing it” said ANSA Bank, with its re­sources, has the flex­i­bil­i­ty and agili­ty to delve in­to ar­eas where com­peti­tors may not.

“In­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions are leav­ing the re­gion and oth­ers are con­tem­plat­ing do­ing so or have re­duced their foot­print. We, on the oth­er hand, are putting down even deep­er roots and widen­ing our reach.

“It sig­ni­fies the Group’s long-term con­fi­dence in the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go and our de­sire to be of ser­vice to cit­i­zens in every area of their lives. We are ex­cit­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ties that cre­at­ing last­ing part­ner­ships with our cus­tomers, sup­port­ed by state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy, will open up. We look for­ward ea­ger­ly to the year ahead and be­yond,” Le Hunte said.

ANSA Bank said staff rep­re­sent the mix of ca­pa­bil­i­ties re­quired to achieve the bank’s vi­sion adding that they are deeply com­mit­ted to the Bank’s pur­pose and are pas­sion­ate about de­liv­er­ing ex­cep­tion­al ser­vice to cus­tomers and the com­mu­ni­ties in which the Bank cur­rent­ly op­er­ates.

The bank said Head of Re­tail and Com­mer­cial Bank­ing, Kath­leen Galy and Su­san Tor­ry, Se­nior Man­ag­er Op­er­a­tions and Ad­min­is­tra­tion, are al­so spear­head­ing the ANSA Bank charge.

Both have ex­ten­sive ca­reers with­in the bank­ing sec­tor and join the ex­ec­u­tive team to dri­ve the growth of ANSA Bank in­to a cut­ting-edge fi­nan­cial ser­vices provider.

ANSA Bank is a sub­sidiary of the ANSA Mer­chant Bank Group, which al­so in­cludes the gen­er­al and life in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, Tatil and Tatil Life.

The Group is the on­ly en­ti­ty lo­cal­ly that pro­vides a full cadre of fi­nan­cial ser­vices all un­der one um­brel­la.

That is, com­mer­cial bank­ing, mer­chant bank­ing and in­sur­ance.

Over the next 15 months, ANSA Bank said it will be in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in tech­nol­o­gy and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gent sys­tems as it moves to be­come Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first ful­ly-in­te­grat­ed, dig­i­tal bank.

“The Bank has set its bar high. Its goal is to of­fer cus­tomised fi­nanc­ing to large cor­po­ra­tions whilst meet­ing the needs of medi­um, small, and mi­cro en­ter­pris­es. In­di­vid­ual home-own­ers and en­tre­pre­neur­ial Trin­bag­o­ni­ans will al­so be catered for in an en­er­getic, pro­gres­sive en­vi­ron­ment,” the bank added.

Last month ANSA Mer­chant Bank com­plet­ed its ac­qui­si­tion of In­dia’s Bank of Bar­o­da’s T&T op­er­a­tions.

The trans­ac­tion was ini­ti­at­ed via a sales agree­ment signed in De­cem­ber 2019 and was ap­proved by the Cen­tral Bank last No­vem­ber.