Penny Bank ATM goes live tomorrow

by Adrian Codogan

The St Vincent Co-operative Bank, the oldest indigenous bank in St Vincent and the Grenadines, will unveil its new Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) at their Bay Street building tomorrow.

The Bank, popularly known as the Penny Bank, is celebrating its 70th anniversary, and last Wednesday, at a press conference, the introduction of the ATM was announced.{{more}}

Head of Information Technology (IT) Martin Sheen said that when the Bank first introduced ATM cards through the National Commercial Bank (now the Bank of St Vincent and the Grenadines) on April 13, 2010, the vision was to make banking as easy and convenient as possible for the customers. He said today, he is proud that they have met that goal and that their own ATM system will go live, tomorrow, June 3.

Sheen said the biggest challenge to the process was the length of time it took to bring the system on stream as there were many delays.

Noting that 90 per cent of the technical work was done by a local team, Sheen said Penny Bank customers will now be able to make transactions at the brand new ATM any time of the day or night at no extra charge.

He, however, stated that it will cost $1 to use any of the 24 ATMs on the Bank of St Vincent and the Grenadines network throughout the country.

Speaking at last Wednesday’s launch, bank president and chair of the board of directors Margaret Ferrari told the gathering that their bank is one that the board, staff and customers can be proud of and that they try to serve their customers’ best interest, while remaining an institution that is successful and profitable.

The St Vincent Co-operative Bank was established in 1945 and has $173,000,000 in assets and $100,000,000 in outstanding loans.

The bank is presently housed in the former Blue Caribbean Building, its former headquarters having been demolished to make way for a new headquarters building. Ferrari said that those developments are still in play, but had to be deferred due to the global economic meltdown of 2008, as the bank strives to remain profitable.