Scotia boss: Local banks need strategic linkages to compete in global market

Scotia Bank managing director Richard Young sent ripples of dissent among his banking colleagues yesterday when he said that if they wanted their banks to compete globally, they needed international help. His comments provoked a debate on whether Caribbean banks needed foreign input to compete in the global marketplace. Young took the view that local banks needed to consider what he called “strategic linkages” with international banks if they wanted to step into and compete in the global market. He was part of a panel discussion at the fourth annual Euromoney/Latin Finance Caribbean Investment Forum. The theme was, “The Future’s Bright, the Future’s Foreign.”

Scotia Bank (Trinidad and Tobago) is owned by Scotia International, whose head office is in Toronto. “You owe it to yourselves to consider strategic links,” he told fellow bankers, including Ronald Harford, managing director and chairman, Republic Bank, Michael Mansoor, chairman, First Caribbean International Bank, Suresh Sookoo, chief operating officer, RBTT and Chris Astaphan, executive vice president, AIC Ltd. Mansoor said that Caribbean banks must have Caribbean management, noting that regional banks must identify with the needs of the Caribbean people. Astaphan, too, noted that alliances with foreign banks usually meant policy being formulated by people who knew next to nothing about the realities of the Caribbean. Regional banks, he said, must identify with ambitions and goals of the Caribbean people, noting one had to be careful with strategic alliances.