PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Econ­o­mist Ronald Ramkissoon has said this coun­try’s reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies should raise ques­tions about whether re­cent in­creas­es in bank­ing fees are jus­ti­fied.

Ear­li­er this week, T&T’s largest bank, Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, an­nounced it would be in­creas­ing fees for sev­er­al bank ser­vices.

Ac­cord­ing to the bank’s web­site, the ad­just­ments will take ef­fect on Fri­day, May 1, 2026.

While sev­er­al busi­ness groups have not­ed the changes, which in­clud­ed fee in­creas­es for cheque books, for­eign cur­ren­cy drafts, and man­ag­er’s cheques, would have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on their op­er­a­tions, Ramkissoon said some of the changes would im­pact or­di­nary cit­i­zens.

One such change is the in­tro­duc­tion of a deb­it trans­ac­tion fee of $1.30 for all with­drawals from three types of de­posit ac­counts. Re­pub­lic Bank cus­tomers have been al­lowed 12 free deb­it trans­ac­tions be­fore such a fee would be ap­plied by the bank.

This means sim­ply go­ing to the ATM to with­draw cash would in­cur such a fee.

He said the Cen­tral Bank, as well as two bod­ies that re­cent­ly saw boards ap­point­ed, the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion and the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion, should look at the mat­ter.

He said, “Pol­i­cy­mak­ers must en­sure that the costs that rise, that they are in­deed jus­ti­fied, which is why you need to have strong reg­u­la­to­ry in­sti­tu­tions, the Cen­tral Bank in this case, and the FTC, in the case of oth­er in­sti­tu­tions, as well as the RIC. It is the reg­u­la­to­ry in­sti­tu­tions that, in the first in­stance, would look at what is hap­pen­ing, and in fact, I should say the con­sumers them­selves.”

Ramkissoon, who was once a se­nior econ­o­mist at Re­pub­lic Bank, stat­ed that giv­en the eco­nom­ic cli­mate, cus­tomers would al­so be re­quired to con­sid­er their op­tions.

“Con­sumers have to make choic­es and have to be aware and have to be sen­si­tive and sen­si­ble about the de­ci­sions they make in re­spect of bor­row­ing and in re­spect of sav­ings. I en­cour­age the Cen­tral Bank, in its fi­nan­cial ed­u­ca­tion role, to be proac­tive in the ed­u­ca­tion of con­sumers as to how they use the ser­vices of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, etc.”

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go owns 32.62 per cent of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), the par­ent com­pa­ny of Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd.

RFHL de­clared $5.46 bil­lion in net in­ter­est in­come in the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025. The group, which op­er­ates in 16 ter­ri­to­ries, record­ed af­ter-tax prof­its of $2.44 bil­lion in 2025.

The T&T Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced a new as­set levy, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, which is be­ing charged against the as­sets of com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in T&T. Com­mer­cial banks al­so pay a cor­po­rate tax rate of 35 per cent.

When these mea­sures were an­nounced in the last year’s bud­get, the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­pressed con­cern that the in­creased tax bur­den could ham­per ex­pan­sion and af­fect fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty at lo­cal banks.