FCIB giving back US$300,000 to its community investments

When FirstCaribbean International Bank reached the fifth anniversary of its establishment on October 14th, it marked the occasion by expressing its thanks to the many communities that are the bedrock of its business activities across its seventeen jurisdictions via US$300,000 of new community investments.{{more}}

FirstCaribbean signaled its intention to become a vibrant community player when, during the first year of its founding, it committed one percent of its prior year post tax profits solely for community activities throughout its now seventeen-country network. In 2005, FirstCaribbean changed its policy, and now provides one percent of prior year pre-tax profits for community work. To ensure that these communities would directly benefit from its benevolence, the Bank established the FirstCaribbean International Comtrust Foundation. The Comtrust is currently chaired by Ms. Sharon Brown, Managing Director of the Bank’s operations in The Bahamas, who is among a nine-member Board of Trustees constituting representatives of the Bank’s Board of Directors and the Bank’s senior membership.

In observance of the Bank’s fifth anniversary, and in the wake of the passage of Hurricanes in Jamaica and Belize, the Bank, through the Comtrust, has set aside US$80,000 and US$50,000, respectively, in hurricane relief to support rebuilding efforts in these two countries.

As a further demonstration of its commitment to giving back to the communities which have made it successful, the Comtrust has earmarked US$170,000 which will be evenly distributed across the bank’s network for special birthday gifts to the community for causes identified by the bank, as part of its wider programme of activities to mark the occasion.