GK sets up one-stop financial centre downtown

McPherse Thompson, Assistant Editor - Business

GraceKennedy Financial Group (GKFG) is investing about J$120 million in a one-stop financial centre to expand its banking network, investment and insurance services to downtown Kingston.

The financial centre opens Monday, February 13, at the corner of Duke and Harbour streets and will house the sixth branch of First Global Bank, as well as subsidiaries First Global Financial Services and Jamaica International Insurance Company Limited (JIIC).

GKFG has negotiated a 20-year lease of the building with owners Kingston and St Andrew Corporation.

The new investment will create about 30 jobs, said GKFG Chief Executive Officer Courtney Campbell.

He said the decision to open the financial centre was informed by dialogue with lawyers, other professionals, business people, and others who work in downtown Kingston and who for years "wanted the GraceKennedy brand of services" but found them difficult to access because most of the branches are located uptown in in areas such as New Kingston, Manor Park, and Liguanea.

customer support unit

Campbell said that JIIC will be establishing a 16-station call centre - or customer-support unit - at the downtown facility. Calls to JIIC's head office in New Kingston will be redirected to that centre.

"Although JIIC is leading in customer service, it's a strategy to take the service even higher," the GK executive said.

The concept of the financial centre began with a similar arrangement in Montego Bay in April 2010, which Campbell said has worked exceedingly well. "We see ourselves as providing all the required financial solutions for our customers, and the idea is to do it under one roof," he told Sunday Business.

With the expansion, he said, "We expect a significant increase in the customer base in terms of growing the deposit portfolio, fee income, and so on," and although First-Global is now ranked as the fifth-largest commercial bank locally, "we have ambitions to change that position over time and the downtown location is part of that strategy."

Campbell, who joined GraceKennedy in July 2008 after 23 years at National Commercial Bank, said First Global Bank has returned to profitability following the discovery of trading irregularities at the institution that resulted in projected bond-trading losses of almost J$1.7 billion in 2009.

The bank made pre-tax profit of J$1.67 billion in 2010 and GKFG is "pretty pleased with how we would have ended in 2011," said Campbell. The results are due to be published before the end of February.

During the last three years, First Global's deposit portfolio has grown by almost 10 per cent and "very importantly, we have kept our non-performing loans under control, improving it year-over-year to under five per cent," he said.

GKFG has a net worth of J$12 billion, with assets close to J$70 billion. Profits are dominated by the money services. "In each of the past three years, we have grown faster than the market in terms of remittance inflow, so that our market share has grown and we now control, in Jamaica, almost 52 per cent of all the remittance inflows that come through our Western Union partnership," said Campbell.

mcpherse.thompson@gleanerjm.com