The Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Mr. Timothy Antoine, has come out strongly in support and defence of the operations of the recently-formed National Commercial Bank of Anguilla (NCBA).
He was at the time speaking at a press conference in Anguilla as part of a working visit to the island on Friday, January 20. One of the media representatives asked inadvisably whether it was true that the ECCB was contemplating putting NCBA into receivership.
“Absolutely false!” the ECCB Governor stressed. “I am hearing this for the first time. Absolutely false! I just explained to you that NCBA will in fact soon have close to another ninety million dollars or there about which is an injection in capital to assist it in going forward.
“We have to be very careful. A bank is not a supermarket. When these very scandalous rumours go around they can hurt the bank. I ask myself if the bank gets hurt, who is hurting? It is the depositors. It’s Anguilla. That is in no one interest, and I would want to urge persons who are peddling those rumours to cease and desist. Cease and desist because ultimately it is suicidal. It is suicidal. It is hurting your own best interest.
There are close to forty thousand deposit accounts in NCBA. Failure is not an option and we are absolutely not considering that. Like I said, the liquidity needs are going to see significant augmentation with the money that is coming in. We have not discussed that. That’s not on the table.”
