1st National Bank Introduces New Managing Director

[dropcap]1[/dropcap]st National Bank held a press conference at its headquarters in Rodney Bay on June 14 introducing its new managing director, Johnathan Johannes. Assuming his new role as of June 1, Johannes said he was pleased to be part of a wonderful team, “to lead and transform this bank into a truly world class indigenous institution”.

One of his beliefs on running an institution is that it is essential to have a clear philosophy of where you want to go, and how you intend to get there. He also believes that the philosophy should be easy for everyone to understand.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “It’s about listening to your customers, listening to your employees, and doing your best to act on what they say to you. I believe that if you put customer service and service delivery at the fore of everything that you do, you will reap the rewards.”

The new managing director stated that it is 1st National Bank’s commitment to strive for excellence, and the bank currently has various initiatives before it, but he is mostly appreciative of the partnership with FBIC out of Germany. “They [FBIC] were instrumental in bringing in a new regime, a new way of dealing with small to medium enterprises,” he said.

Going back to his statement on philosophy he added, “It’s never going to be easy because I am sure everybody is aware that as technology advances you expect services to improve and you’d expect the service to be better and quicker but often times it’s not.”

Therefore, one of the bank’s aims is to “strike a delicate balance by giving you that technological advancement but bringing banking back to the time of old, when bankers truly knew who their customers were, when they knew their customers by name and customers knew who their bankers were”.

The new MD mentioned that one of the bank’s key advantages is not only based on the services it provides, or the branches and ATMs it has throughout the island, but the people who support it. “Great people will lead to great business,” he said. “As we move forward, accessibility to these people will be key.”

Johannes spoke about the challenging times being faced by the banking sector but said he was pleased to announce that for the second consecutive year, 1st National had paid dividends to its shareholders. “So we continue to be a strong, stable and solid financial institution and that’s something to be proud of,” he emphasised.

To conclude the conference, the managing director said 1st National Bank was open to feedback from the media and the public on how it could do better as it was the bank’s intention to continue providing exceptional service to its customers.