CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank has targeted the Jamaican market for growth as it reduces its regional footprint through the divestment of its network in five islands.

The regional bank announced in October 2021 that it will be pulling out of five markets — Aruba, St Vincent, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, and Grenada. So far, it has sold its Aruba business and has closed its Dominica operation after an offer for the business from the National Bank of Dominica was withdrawn. Meanwhile, negotiations are ongoing to shed the operations in St Vincent, Grenada, and St Kitts and Nevis.

However, while those deals are in progress, Mark St Hill, who assumed the post of chief executive officer of CIBC FirstCaribbean on November 1, 2022, says the focus has now shifted to accelerating growth in the remaining markets, with Jamaica at the top of the list.

“We are very keen to expand and grow our business here,” St Hill told the Jamaica Observer in an interview while visiting the island in mid-January.

St Hill said the Jamaican market accounts for “53 per cent of the population that we serve across the English-speaking Caribbean”, adding that “any strategist will tell you, you need to grow here. So we are going to grow the business here”.

He added that Jamaica is showing the right macroeconomic indicators and a “general buzz of activity here” also influences the bank’s decision to put more focus on the local market.

“What we are doing is expanding our reach of getting to our clients. We are going to be expanding our corporate banking. We have one of the strongest investment banking arms. The beauty of CIBC FirstCaribbean, is that our tentacles don’t only stay here. So we can bring a bandwidth of expertise from across the region. So, if there are major infrastructure deals and investment deals, we are able to bring those investment banking expertise from Barbados, from Cayman, from Jamaica, from wherever, and bring it here.”

He estimates CIBC FirstCaribbean’s market share in corporate banking at “about 7.0 per cent to 8.0 per cent”, but refused to give a target for growth, citing that he would rather express a vision.

CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank has 6.7 per cent of the total banking assets in Jamaica, ranking at number six of the eight commercial banks on the island. Only First Global Bank and Citibank are smaller. By contrast, the National Commercial Bank holds 38.8 per cent of banking assets.

For St Hill, however, the vision is not for growth only on the corporate banking side of the business.

Key in growing in the Jamaica market is also a transition to what the CEO calls “a digitally enabled bank” with four main innovations to hit the market in the next few months.

Those innovations are instant issuance of debit and credit cards, digital onboarding of clients, a prepaid chip card, and auto adjudication of loans. He said the bank is also in the process of unveiling a suite of new credit cards.

As for the instant issuance of debit and credit cards, St Hill said this will reduce the time frame for a customer to get one of the cards.

“Right now, when you get your card approved, it comes through the mail; it’s produced by our vendor in Canada, and then after two weeks is picked up, or even longer. So what we are doing is having the ability to print, emboss and personalise that card within our branch.”

The machine to do instant issuance is located in the Portmore branch of CIBC FirstCaribbean.

With regard to digital onboarding of clients, the CIBC FirstCaribbean CEO said they can “actually start the process of getting a bank account in the comfort of their home. They will be able to upload all of the KYC [know your customer] requirements from home, take a selfie of their face, and the bank has the technology that is actually even better than a human being looking at you and your passport to say that is a match.”

St Hill said the technology was tested in Jamaica already, “but we are working through with the Bank of Jamaica” to ensure it works well in tying the identity confirmation through e-Gov.

Prepaid chip cards are set to be piloted in Jamaica this month.

“It’s gonna be very, very important for the removal of bank cheques. There may be a lot of individuals that don’t have bank accounts and that are issued recurring payments, so it’s basically an ABM card that the corporate can top up,” he added.

“Even for getting loans, and that is being piloted here too. We now have the ability to make an offer to you for a loan, and you can get disbursement of that within 10 minutes of acceptance,” he said as he outlined how the auto adjudicating process will reduce friction in the bank.

“We’ve moved banking to this,” he said, holding up his phone, as he noted that in the Turks and Caicos Islands a record was set when a client got a pre-approved loan in 57 seconds.

“We are really coming to the market… and we are trying to remove the friction points that frustrate clients in banking. And that’s what we are doing — we’re trying to remove a lot of the frustration points.”

He said the growth in Jamaica will take place not through block and steel expansion of its current 13 branches, but through technology and data analytics, even though he admits “there may be the need to have what we call contact centres where you can exchange documents, so there may be an office here or there, but not what we know as banking halls with tellers and all of that.

“When it all gets together, we will be the bank of the future.

“Now I want to be very clear, in that we are not moving to be a fully digital bank. I like to say we are moving to being a digitally enabled bank, and that’s the sweet spot because in the Caribbean, I firmly believe [in] the need for branches, the need for human interaction, the need for bringing it all together. So, it’s talking about using technology to remove the friction and enabling us to do more volume — to be faster, to be nimbler. Of course, that brings with it the need to be the very best at cyber security and information security, and we are investing millions in those,” he said.