Bank cutting jobs in global restructure
(CNS): Butterfield Bank is reducing its global workforce by around 9%, with the possible loss of 20 jobs here in the Cayman Islands. Officials from the bank told CNS Thursday that it will continue to operate in all of the jurisdictions where it currently has a presence, and there will be no changes to the products and services offered to clients.
“Butterfield regularly evaluates its operations, capital levels and efficiency according to market conditions and business needs,” a spokesperson said. “Regrettably, some roles across the business have been impacted as part of a Group restructure to position ourselves for the future.”
In a memo circulating locally to staff last month, Butterfield CEO Michael Collins said that the redundancies were effective immediately.
According to its 2022 annual report, the bank at that time employed 413 people in Bermuda, 244 in the Cayman Islands, and 1,341 globally, but officials have not said exactly how many jobs will be lost where or how many local people in Cayman will be cut.
Despite the solid performance of the bank, its success in containing costs and the benefit of high interest rates, Collins said the company was not “immune to the inflationary pressures that all companies are facing today” and that the job cuts came after a thorough review of the business, forecasts and market conditions.
Expecting interest rates to start to flatten or soon, Collins said in the memo, “We must reduce expenses to partially offset declining net interest income while maintaining a low-risk balance sheet throughout the rate cycle.”
The news of the local job losses coincides with the release of the latest Labour Force Survey in Cayman, which shows a drop in unemployment among Caymanians to a historic low of just 3.7% and a high demand for workers.
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Category: Banking & money, Business, Jobs, Local News
ever ask for hundred dollar bills in usd….triggered
Their usd/kyd fx rates for a fixed currency are on the verge of criminal. Rip off bank, the only reason I’m with them is for the AA Mastercard.
Just as a general reminder: it’s the CIG’s job to put our local consumers first, the voting public, not the foreign-owned banks and their shareholders, whoever and wherever they are. Having done it wrong for so long, it really feels like our regimes doesn’t know who they serve.
Disgusting that Butterfield are charging me around 30 KYD per month in banking fees. They are now even charging 30 cents to transfer money from my savings to my chequing account. Any interest on my savings is wiped out with fees.
Why are these fees not regulated by the government? This is compounding the hardship felt already from the increased interest rates.
You asking the government to regulate? Hahahahaha, they can’t even get their employees to show up to work or answer a phone.
Not sure why so many complaining about this now. It increased from 0.25 to 0.30c over a year ago and is on every and any transaction except a deposit. Don’t expect govt to do anything as they are riding right behind with a 0.25c stamp duty fee on those same transactions. I’ve been trying to tell people for years that they are paying 0.50-0.55c in combined fees every time they use a debit card to buy a $1.09 cup of coffee but fell on deaf ears. I can only assume people are starting to actually look at their fees and/or statements to finally wake up.
Well they sure have some miserable people in customer service, they can get rid of those first. Took me five days to get a lien removed from a vehicle loan of some thirteen years ago when I sold it recently. Had to physically go to the bank twice. Once to request the lien to be removed and again to collect the letter. It’s like they have never heard of e-mail.
Like all the customer service in the Banks here, rude, arrogant, ill mannered, annoyed if asked a question, look at you as if you are the criminal dealing with their money, the customer is never right!
Well got rid of all the long-term Caymanians and kept the Jamaicans, Canadians & Hispanics so what do u expect in Customer Service.
Not true!
Always somebody else… some Caymanians think it is beneath them to serve others.
That’s funny. Customer service complaints from all groups were never this prevalent prior to the artificial population inflation experiment.
3.60pm I worked there when I discovered they had a lien on my deceased son’s car and he had never had a loan in his short life.
For the so-called “fifth biggest banking center on Earth”, the Cayman Islands is stuck at least 20 years behind modern banking products, services, merchant payments, and consumer protection. They don’t want corporate clients. None of the class A banks are locally owned or operated, and don’t care how they make money, whether they perform to standards that don’t apply, or if people lose their capital/investments along the way. So much the better. We are really thrown to the lions when it comes to what’s left of these actors.
Should have adopted Bitcoin years ago
Government declaring the coffers are empty, banks reducing staff are just indicators for Cayman to realise that times have changed and we need to start pulling back on spending.
The government’s decision to allow people to liberate their pensions has delayed the inevitable but the slump is coming and the long term ramifications will be serious.
Next up: Complete failure across the board of insurance companies. More than ever, we need PACT to step up and nationalise CINICO.
CINICO is already nationalized Einstein. Who do you think its owner is?
It’s absurd to charge service fees on a savings accounts for the sole purpose of saving. In my opinion our government should not allow this considering, you have retirees, pensioners, collage students and accounts set up for child maintance to be raided by the fees. For crying out loud our monies are lent out at a high spread.
Like many things here, just one decent rival to Butterfield would clean up.
Same with supermarkets, telecomms, vehicles.
Unfortunately, cartel style markets are the way here.
I moved here in 2022, and found a paucity of advice about which bank to use. In the hope of being helpful, here’s my experience.
I initially got a bank account with Butterfield, as it’s the bank which my employer uses, and which apparently dominates the market. I was however unimpressed with the:
1. Very old-fashioned, extremely unintuitive banking app;
2. Inability to send electronic transfers except <14:00, Mon-Fri;
3. Multiple transfer failures whereby the app promised to send money but failed to do so; and
4. CI$ 2 charges for both ATM withdrawals and in-country electronic transfers.
CIMA bank fee comparison table. I used this August 2022 Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) comparison table of banking fees: https://www.cima.ky/upimages/commonfiles/RetailBankFees-1August2022_1659368841.pdf
Recommendation: CIBC First Caribbean. After analysing the options, and visiting several banks and discussing their account options, I went with CIBC First Caribbean. CIBC stands for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, so it is Canadian-controlled and is like banking with a Western bank. Most notably, as it is how we routinely interface with our bank, the app is efficient, effective, and recognisably modern. If you select the correct accounts (Direct Banking KYD and Direct Banking USD), there are no fees for domestic electronic transfers, or ATM use. This is because they do charge you if you use counter services. Most other banks penalise tech-savvy users by imposing charges on electronic transfers and ATM use, to subsidise customers who need expensive human cashiers, etc. With CIBC's model, the costs lie where they fall: with those using cashier services, etc.
Application process. The CIBC application process is both efficient and almost entirely online (again, something else that most of us take for granted in our home countries), beginning here: https://www.cibcfcib.com/personal-banking/apply-for-a-product.
In July 2023, CIBC modernised further, and required most transactions to be conducted electronically. This is plainly the most efficient option, and should allow them to continue to offer low fees to technologically literate customers: https://www.cibcfcib.com/binaries/content/assets/campaigns/cessation-of-over-the-counter-otc-transactions-cayman.pdf
I closed my account with CIBC years ago. They continue to send me a debit card associated with my closed account. Can’t say they’re up high on the pedestal you’ve created for them.
Ditto. You also have to closely monitor your mortgage payments with your own amortization schedule – they rarely get it correct. The app allows you to pay your credit card but then there is no debit to your account even though the credit card is paid. These are scary issues for a bank.
Also try walking into CIBC to try and get anything done. Three persons waiting in line, 6 tellers and you are still in there for an hour. Really unbelievable.
If you go in to the one at Regatta, take some ear plugs. The noise from the ATM is likely above legal decibel levels for an indoor space that size.
appreciate your analysis.
open a Schwab international brokerage account. have them send you a debit card, you pay no fee on anything,and you have a straight forward trading platform with no commision I’ve been doing it for years
If you are USA expatriate.
Literally had to run away from CIBC. Horrible service, horrible everything.
6.08pm CNB is much better
Not sure how they can have a “declining net interest income” considering USD rates (and the fact they pay less than nominal interest on savings accounts) but hey ho. Banks here also have a ‘prime rate’ on interest rates…..
Probabbly more so the fact that employees in Cayman are too extensive. They can probably hire 2 equally (if not more) qualified people in halifax for the same salary that they would pay for a CI / bermuda employee.
Banks throughout the world are cutting back. Online banking is king now folks sorry
Which now comes at an expense.
Right or wrong, there’s no such thing as the high street bank in the U.K. and US anymore.
Cayman will naturally follow slowly but surely.
All dealings I had recently with Butterfield over a complaint…emails and phone calls…involved a call centre in Nova Scotia not Cayman.
I recently had good service from the Butterfield people in Nova Scotia regarding a complaint. Big problem was in Cayman not in Nova Scotia but they sorted it all out for me.
decent bank (by terrible caymanian bank standards)..outrageous fees.
cayman needs more atm’s btw…
And it’s ridiculous that a bank charges an ATM fee if not your bank, for example taking butterfield cash out at a CNB ATM incurs a $2 fee. Also fees to cash cheques. All absurd and unique to Cayman.
Do you understand that it is the bank that owns the ATM you are using that is receiving the fee? So in your example that would be CNB.
But a fee to cash a cheque at the bank where the issuer has the account is absurd, since they can tell if it is a good cheque, i.e. the account has the funds.
Not true, ATM withdrawals from other banks, other your own isn’t unique to Cayman.
Perhaps you’re not from the USA? And where you’re from there’s no charge for non-networked bank ATMs.
See: https://www.gobankingrates.com/banking/banks/atm-fees-list/
I’m also paid in USD, offered a USD account… yet get charged for withdrawing USD or charged bps and bad rate for converting to KYD. What a racket.
Don’t forget that when paying in USD by card at stores, they use their own exchange rate.
Not sure of your analysis. If you use a USD card (at our business), you are charged in USD, so the exchange rate to USD is 1:1.
If you are buying from a store that charges in KYD, then you will pay the amount divided by .8. So you are always better paying in the stated currency. Otherwise you are giving the bank a minimum of 4 %.
It is not decent – even for the abysmal cayman standard