RBTT OPERATIONS in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean are likely to start operating under the
RBC Royal Bank name from early next year, says RBC’s chief executive officer of Caribbean banking Suresh Sookoo.
He was speaking at the bank’s St Clair Place, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad head office on Monday following a ceremony to announce the formal start of operations in the twin-island republic.
Sookoo, who has been with RBTT for three decades, said it was “only fitting” to introduce the new brand in Trinidad and Tobago since it was the location of RBC’s Caribbean head office.
He said there would be a complete transition of signage in Trinidad and Tobago by the end of the month.
Sookoo noted that in the coming months RBTT operations across the region, starting with Jamaica, would adopt the new RBC brand while existing RBC branches in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Eastern Caribbean and Barbados would move to an “updated brand expression to create one RBC in the Caribbean”.
Currently, both RBC and RBTT operate in Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia and these are expected to be the last to be formally rebranded.
The official rebranding of RBTT in Trinidad and Tobago comes after three years of behind-the-scenes work to integrate the two organizations since the acquisition of RBTT by Canada’s largest bank in June 2008.
RBTT’s technology infrastructure, systems and processes had to be integrated with those of RBC – an ongoing process which spans the entire Caribbean basin and links back to Toronto.
Sookoo said the rebranding was a significant step in becoming “the undisputed financial services leader” in Caribbean markets served by RBC.
He noted that it leveraged RBC and RBTT’s more than 100-year heritage in the Caribbean since it married “best-in-class global banking practices and resources with in-depth local knowledge of the region”. (NB)
