CBTT seeks Republic’s assurance on 30-day notice of fee hike

Geisha Kow­lessar-Alon­zo

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Cen­tral Bank of T&T (CBTT) yes­ter­day dis­closed that it is en­gag­ing Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd re­gard­ing con­cerns over the in­tro­duc­tion of new and high­er bank­ing fees, in­clud­ing whether cus­tomers were giv­en suf­fi­cient no­tice ahead of the changes.

The is­sue has sparked pub­lic de­bate, par­tic­u­lar­ly as cus­tomers re­port­ed sur­prise at in­creased charges ap­plied to their ac­counts.

Asked whether the Cen­tral Bank was sat­is­fied that Re­pub­lic Bank gave its cus­tomers the re­quired 30-day no­tice of the in­tro­duc­tion of high­er fees, the reg­u­la­tor of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions said: “This is one of the ar­eas that the Cen­tral Bank is en­gag­ing with Re­pub­lic Bank at this time in re­spect of the new bank fees and charges. The Cen­tral Bank is seek­ing as­sur­ance, as the reg­u­la­tor, that com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the bank’s cus­tomers met the min­i­mum stan­dards as stip­u­lat­ed in the Cen­tral Bank’s Mar­ket Con­duct Guide­line for in­sti­tu­tions li­censed un­der the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act (FIA).”

In an ex­clu­sive re­port in the last Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, the CBTT said its ‘Mar­ket Con­duct Guide­lines for in­sti­tu­tions li­censed un­der the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act (2018)’ re­quire com­mer­cial banks to dis­close in­for­ma­tion on fees and charges and “to pro­vide cus­tomers with at least 30 days’ writ­ten no­tice of any pro­posed change.

“Com­mer­cial banks are al­so re­quired to dis­play the no­tice at their of­fices and on their web­site for at least 30 days be­fore the ef­fec­tive date of any in­crease.”

That guide­line sets out the reg­u­la­tor’s ex­pec­ta­tions for trans­paren­cy, dis­clo­sure, and the fair treat­ment of con­sumers in the fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

Ques­tioned on whether com­mer­cial banks should al­so be re­quired to post in­creas­es in fees to their so­cial me­dia pages and place no­tices in the news­pa­pers, the CBTT said, “The Guide­line does not ex­plic­it­ly state the means of the writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the bank’s cus­tomers, how­ev­er, it is ex­pect­ed that banks would use all avail­able means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to no­ti­fy their cus­tomers in­clud­ing their so­cial me­dia plat­forms and di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their cus­tomers.”

The Cen­tral Bank is­sued a news re­lease about two hours af­ter it re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions. In the news re­lease, which was head­lined ‘The Cen­tral Bank reaf­firms com­mit­ment to con­sumer pro­tec­tion,’ the fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tor ac­knowl­edged pub­lic con­cern gen­er­at­ed by re­cent fee ad­just­ments im­ple­ment­ed by Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, which took ef­fect from May 1, 2026.

In shar­ing his po­si­tion, Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai said, “We un­der­stand why cit­i­zens are frus­trat­ed, and we do not take this sen­ti­ment light­ly. Over the years, we have close­ly mon­i­tored fees and charges of com­mer­cial banks, and the da­ta on this re­mains pub­licly avail­able on our web­site. While our role as reg­u­la­tor is de­fined by law, it is not a pas­sive one. Cit­i­zens de­serve a fi­nan­cial sys­tem that works in their in­ter­est, and the Cen­tral Bank will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for that.”

The CBTT said it is com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing the chal­lenge of in­creas­es in bank fees and charges es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the lev­el of prof­its de­clared by the banks.

As part of its ef­forts to in­flu­ence de­ci­sion mak­ing in re­la­tion to fees and charges, the Bank said it re­cent­ly sur­veyed six com­mer­cial banks to ob­tain a com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of the phi­los­o­phy and prac­tices, in­clud­ing gov­er­nance and con­trols, sur­round­ing banks’ fees and charges. A re­port based on the find­ings of the sur­vey and rec­om­men­da­tions for the way for­ward is be­ing fi­nalised for shar­ing with the in­dus­try and for im­ple­men­ta­tion fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion, said the CBTT.