FCIB receives its fourth and fifth awards for 2006

FirstCaribbean International Bank has received Bracken Awards from The Banker magazine for its achievements in the financial services sector, its fourth and fifth Awards for 2006. The bank has been named Best Bank in two of its major markets, Jamaica and The Bahamas. The Banker is a publication of the Financial Times.

The Bracken award is named after Brendan Bracken, the founding editor of The Banker and the Chairman of the modern day Financial Time from 1945 to 1958. Banks are judged on their financial performance, initiatives in the market for the year, and return to their shareholders.{{more}}

“This award is very well deserved. Sharon Brown and her team in The Bahamas have performed magnificently since FirstCaribbean was formed in 2002, and they continue to deliver results of which we are very proud. Our performance there in our last fiscal has been our strongest to date,” said CEO, Charles Pink. “I’m also delighted for Milton Brady and the whole Jamaica team. This award is fully earned! We’ve invested a lot in the Jamaica market in the past year, and they have stepped up to the plate to deliver fantastic results. I am extremely proud of them.”

In 2006, FirstCaribbean was also named “Best Emerging Market Bank” by Global Finance magazine of New York, an honour which it also captured in 2004 and 2005. Also in 2006, for the first time in its 37-year history, Euromoney Magazine conferred its Best Bank Award of Excellence on a Pan-Caribbean bank, ranking FirstCaribbean among the most outstanding financial institutions in the Americas. FirstCaribbean has also been selected as the LatinFinance Bank of the Year 2006 for the region. Latin Finance is based in The United States.

“It’s one thing to be recognized by your peers as a force to be reckoned with in financial services in the region, but it’s quite another to receive independent recognition by such prestigious institutions in the world of banking and finance. When we created FirstCaribbean we knew we were seeing the birth of something special. Our recent achievements are only the beginning and our team across the region is proving that our vision of being the Bank of First choice for the region is spot on!” said Pink.