GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Cen­tral Bank is main­tain­ing a firm stance on its leg­isla­tive au­thor­i­ty to over­see the lo­cal bank­ing sec­tor, even as it cau­tions against the im­ple­men­ta­tion of rigid price con­trols on ser­vice fees.

Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai clar­i­fied that while the reg­u­la­tor pos­sess­es a clear leg­isla­tive man­date to mon­i­tor the con­duct of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, the cur­rent frame­work does not ex­tend to the di­rect “set­ting” of prices for spe­cif­ic bank ser­vices.

In­stead, the bank is util­is­ing its leg­isla­tive over­sight to en­gage in high-lev­el dis­cus­sions with com­mer­cial en­ti­ties, en­sur­ing that the “regime” of fees re­mains one that the pub­lic could rea­son­ably nav­i­gate.

Speak­ing with mem­bers of the me­dia at the Na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Lit­er­a­cy Pro­gramme’s (NFLP) in­au­gur­al event which took place at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya yes­ter­day Howai ex­plained, “There are av­enues through which some of these things can be looked at as we go for­ward.

“We want to be care­ful how much leg­is­la­tion we put in and how much we try to con­trol prices in the coun­try as a whole. That is some­thing we need to take in­to ac­count as we go for­ward. We don’t want to be over­ly re­stric­tive in set­ting prices for every­thing.

“So whether it is the dou­bles ven­dor, whether it is the fel­low sell­ing shoes, whether it is the bank charg­ing fees, we don’t want to get in­volved as a coun­try in set­ting prices for every­thing. What we want to do is to en­sure that the prices be­ing charged are com­pet­i­tive, they’re rea­son­able and they’re jus­ti­fi­able. So those are the things we want to take in­to ac­count.”

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns about con­sumer pro­tec­tion, Howai ad­mit­ted that while the Cen­tral Bank’s leg­isla­tive pow­er does not in­clude the abil­i­ty to fine banks for un­jus­ti­fied markups, its in­flu­ence as a reg­u­la­tor re­mains sig­nif­i­cant.

“We can’t say we will fine you for a par­tic­u­lar amount but what we will do is en­gage with the banks, and the banks do lis­ten to us, and they do re­spond to us,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns that banks are in­creas­ing fees de­spite an­nounc­ing record-break­ing prof­its, Howai cau­tioned against judg­ing the in­dus­try sole­ly on head­line fig­ures.

Us­ing Re­pub­lic Bank as a bench­mark—not­ing an as­set base ex­ceed­ing $100 bil­lion—Howai ar­gued that a prof­it of $1 bil­lion to $2 bil­lion rep­re­sents on­ly a one to two per cent re­turn on as­sets.

“When you look at the ab­solute num­ber, it looks big. But when you look at the rate of re­turn for busi­ness­es, some may even say that is too small a re­turn. You have to take in­to ac­count the amount that was placed at risk to get that re­turn,” Howai fur­ther ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he main­tained that bank prof­itabil­i­ty is a pre­req­ui­site for na­tion­al fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, adding, “We don’t want banks to be los­ing mon­ey. If a bank is clos­ing down, it is a prob­lem for our cus­tomers, be­cause they will lose mon­ey as a re­sult.”

Re­pub­lic Bank im­ple­ment­ed in­creas­es to fees on se­lect prod­ucts and ser­vices ef­fec­tive May 1, 2026.

This in­cludes high­er charges for rou­tine trans­ac­tions, over­drafts and missed pay­ments.

In a re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia last week, Karen Yip Chuck, group vice-pres­i­dent, Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd and vice-pres­i­dent, Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, Karen Yip Chuck, said while cus­tomer con­cerns about the in­crease in the bank’s fees are valid, there has been a “com­plex and cost­ly en­vi­ron­ment” cre­at­ed by cyb­ser­cu­ri­ty con­cerns and reg­u­la­tions re­quired for an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing frame­works.