Bermuda Commercial Bank Says Overdue E-Banking Platform Available Soon

by Robert Lee, Tax-news.com, London

18 May 2001

Bermuda Commercial Bank (BCB) says on its website that the site is currently 'under construction, but soon you will be able to take advantage of our online gateway to global financial markets. Bermuda Commercial Bank will offer a comprehensive, low cost, online offshore financial services facility, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.' Those awaiting the promised e-banking platform have been waiting some time - well over a year - a delay which the bank has been reluctant to explain.

According to press reports, BCB's e-banking facility will be up and running in the "months to come", having been tested by a band of selected customers. It is still not known whether these "tests" proved successful.

It was in December 1999 that BCB’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, John Deuss, presented details of the bank's Internet offering, which he called 'the next stage of the bank’s development of electronic banking and financial services.'

At the time, Mr Deuss said: 'The user friendly, easy to navigate, secure, fully electronic platform will offer a broad menu of banking, investment, trading, financial advisory, trust and global custody and e-commerce services. Electronic banking facilities will be made available starting 1st January 2000 and the other services referred to here above will be added in the course of the first quarter 2000.'

But potential customers are still waiting. The delay in BCB's e-banking initiative, which will operate as a joint venture between BCB and its major shareholder First Curacao International Bank, has not really been explained. After it failed to materialise in January 2000, the bank was remarkably vague, saying it had delayed the implementation to deal with 'security issues and integrity both for customers and the bank.'

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