Banks have launched a new code in which they intend to promote best practices.
It was compiled by the Barbados Bankers’ Association, which is representative of all the commercial banks.
Speaking during the launch at the Warrens head office of First Caribbean International Bank, president Donna Wellington said it was a voluntary commitment banks were making to customers to adhere to a code of conduct for operating in the market, which reflected the best practices in dealing with customers.
“Banking is based on the maintenance of the highest levels of ethics and operating principles,” she said, adding those principles must extend beyond the regulation of a Central Bank. “We must be selfregulating, responsible entities duty-bound to deliver the fiduciary and financial obligations owed to customers, the community and the country.”
Wellington noted the new code was being promoted even as banks were being “targeted with the ire of critics” on radio call-in programmes and the brunt of bankers’ “jokes or quotes”. (GC)
