By Stabroek News
Copyright stabroeknews
Canadian-headquartered Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) announced in a release yesterday that it will be transferring its Guyana banking operations to Scotiabank Guyana Inc (SGI) effective November 1, and will henceforth be conducting business as Scotiabank Guyana Inc.
It explained that SGI is a locally registered company which is a direct, wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Nova Scotia Canada, and has already been incorporated in Guyana and granted a licence to conduct banking business and provide financial services under the Financial Institutions Act.
The release emphasised that this transfer will have no impact on customers, employees, suppliers, or any other stakeholder.
According to the release, the Bank of Nova Scotia has been operating as a branch in Guyana since 1968 but has taken the decision to reorganise its business for greater efficiency and capital management. This structure is in alignment with Scotiabank’s other global operations, including those in the Caribbean region (The Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Turks & Caicos) and Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru), which operate as subsidiaries.
As such, the main change resulting from this reorganisation is the new name of the company. Clients and suppliers already know the bank as Scotiabank but will now start to see the new name of “Scotiabank Guyana Inc.” as its legal name, as opposed to the previous name “The Bank of Nova Scotia”.
Jabar Singh, President & CEO, Scotiabank Colpatria (Colombia), Head, Scotiabank Caribbean and Central America, reinforced the Bank’s commitment to growing its business in Guyana under the new legal structure. “We have made several recent investments, including technology enhancements to our Mobile App, the introduction of payment solutions for retail self-checkout kiosks, the digitisation of our client onboarding process, expansion of our ABM footprint, and incremental bandwidth upgrades. The Bank also plans to expand its client coverage and business portfolio in Guyana. This includes enhancements to Global Transaction Banking (GTB) products and services, and Global Banking and Markets (GBM) services such as investment banking, cash management and trade finance”, he said.
In November of 2018, the Bank of Nova Scotia had announced the intended sale of its banking operations in Guyana and other parts of the Caribbean.
On March 3rd, 2021, Scotiabank had announced that it had reached an agreement for the sale of its banking operations in Guyana to Trinidad’s First Citizens Bank Limited. The agreement it noted was subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions, a release from the bank had said.
The process of how the sale was announced was frowned upon by the Guyana Central Bank and government as the financial entity was supposed to formally notify it of its intentions. On June 9, 2022 Scotiabank announced that the agreement for the sale of its banking operations in Guyana to First Citizens had expired and the agreement had been terminated in accordance with its terms.
“Scotiabank remains committed to providing the highest level of customer service and quality banking solutions to our customers in Guyana and across the Caribbean”, a brief statement from the bank said then. A decision was subsequently made that that operations would continue here as is.
